Carlos Sainz Reveals What Put Him ‘On the Back Foot’ for Gutting Australian GP

The third race of the season in Melbourne ends with Charles Leclerc bagging another victory this season. However, teammate Carlos Sainz didn’t enjoy his time in Australia. He had to retire from the Sunday race after breaching his car into gravel.

The 27-year-old had a disastrous week in Australia. First with the disappointing qualifying and then the race day. After only three laps into the race, the Spaniard lost grip in Turn 9 and slides through the grass into the gravel. So, Sainz eventually had to retire from the race.

After the race, Sainz revealed struggling with the steering wheel and how many buttons on it weren’t working, which cost him the disappointing results on both Saturday and Sunday. The Ferrari driver reported, “We had again a problem with the steering wheel. Similar problem to yesterday, few buttons were not working.”

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We had to change the steering wheel, and it meant the steering wheel was not well-positioned for the start,” Sainz continued. “And we triggered anti-stalling on both starts because of the clutch and torque. Because of that, obviously, I was on the back foot.”

Carlos Sainz wasn’t happy with the tires

After qualifying P9 for the race day, the smooth operator went for hard compound tires to start the race. But the tires didn’t favor the Spaniard. Because he was struggling to get some temperature and grip into those hard tires on the Albert Par Circuit.

Further, the Ferrari driver also reveals how he misjudged the tires’ grip and went overtaking. This eventually led to his car into the gravel. The 27-year-old was extremely critical of his and his team’s overall performance.

Sainz reported in the post-race interview, “I tried to move up the places in the first three laps and I clearly made a mistake when the tire was probably not ready to start overtaking. I misjudged the grip, and I made a mistake, which cost me there. The tires were not clearly perfect. I have been imperfect this weekend, we were imperfect as a team clearly. We need to analyze what we did wrong and we will come back better.”

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Saiz undoubtedly had a poor weekend, but on the other hand, his Monegasque teammate enjoyed the weekend. Leclerc took the Sir Jack Brabham trophy back to the Maranello base. Further, Ferrari is dominating constructors’ standing. Let’s see if Carlos Sainz can redeem himself and help Ferrari alongside Leclerc to dominate the next race in Imola on April 24.