Remember how the F1 community rejoiced after Ferrari finally built a competitive car last year? Or so was believed as Red Bull established their dominance in the second part of the season. Poor Charles Leclerc lost the championship lead as struggles mounted in the second half of the season. Now, Carlos Sainz has come out to defend Ferrari’s Achilles’ heel by revealing the horrific reality. What did Sainz reveal?

Ferrari’s start to 2023 has been nothing short of dismal. After the disappointing second half of the 2022 season, the Scuderia were expected to challenge for the top spot. However, Ferrari is 4th in the standings, 199 points behind Red Bull. The gap between Ferrari and Red Bull was there at the end of last year and has only increased ever so much coming into the 2023 season.

The SF23 has a similar pace to the RB19 in qualifying trim. However, the race pace is where the problem lies as Ferrari struggles with tire degradation. Carlos Sainz explained that Ferrari already lost ground to Red Bull in terms of race pace during the second half of the 2022 season. Sainz advised that the F1 community thought it was just the strategic blunders made by the team. However, the drop-off in race pace was a major reason why they weren’t competitive and “were always getting eaten by the Red Bull”

According to Motorsport.com, Carlos Sainz said, “People a lot of times were blaming it on the strategy. But actually, I think a lot of times we were just never as fast as them in the race, like in Budapest or in Austin, or places where we put it on pole and then we went backward. Maybe the difference there was that we were on pole by one-tenth, and then on race pace, we were down by two or three-tenths”

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Carlos Sainz attempted to save Ferrari’s face by suggesting the race pace was the reason why they couldn’t compete with Red Bull. Whilst that might be true, there’s no getting away from the fact that Ferrari did make some major blunders. As those strategic blunders have made their way into the 2023 season, so have the problems with the F1-75.

Carlos Sainz on why the SF-23 carries forwards the F1-75’s weaknesses

F1 teams usually shift their focus toward the next year’s challenger toward the midpoint of the season or even earlier. Look at Red Bull, 8 races into this season and they’ve already started work on the 2024 car. Sainz explained how Ferrari had an amazing pace during the first 6-7 races in 2022. By that time, the Scuderia committed to the development of SF-23, and weaknesses found later in the season got baked into this year’s car. 

According to Motorsport.com, Carlos Sainz said “We were fast in the race, and fast in quali, in the first six, seven races of the season. And that’s why probably this car is born this way. Also, because it’s after six/seven races where you commit to a car or to a concept, maybe even those strong first six races of the [2022] season also made us trust maybe this concept and this car.”

What do you think? Will Ferrari overcome the race pace issue?

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