Remember how Lewis Hamilton urged Mercedes to change the Zeropod concept? Carlos Sainz has suggested something along the same lines but not as radical as what Mercedes are trying. F1 is going into what would be a very busy month with 3 races in 3 weeks and Sainz has urged the employees at Maranello to save the face of Ferrari amidst the terrible show that they put on in Miami. What did Carlos Sainz have to say?
After securing the pole at the Azerbaijan GP, Ferrari was expected to perform better and go a step further in Miami. However, it just kept on getting worse as the sessions passed. Charles Leclerc crashed in the qualifying and was then unable to overtake Kevin Magnussen for a major part of the race being stuck being him. Sainz, who started P3, finished P5 after struggling a lot on Hard tires and having a scary moment in the Pitlane.
With Sainz’s home GP being a part of the first triple-header of the season, the Spaniard has urged his team to make changes so that they can save their face from a shameful performance once again. Carlos Sainz suggested that with the current performance, Ferrari cannot challenge at the top and fall further back in the race. The team needs to try a lot of things to make sure a repeat does not happen and that they improve the race pace.
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According to Sky Sports, Carlos Sainz said “We can’t fight for pole on Saturday, for the podium with the average and then changing the mix we collapse. We are in a position where we have to try a lot of things, from here in Barcelona we will test a lot of things at the setup level. There we will try to change the car, to improve the race pace and have more flexibility.”
Charles Leclerc agreed with Carlos Sainz as he called the SF23 unpredictable, meaning it is difficult for the drivers to lean on the car. When they do try to lean on it, crashes as the one in Miami Qualifying happen.
Charles Leclerc called the SF23 inconsistent
Charles Leclerc suggests that he spoke with Carlos Sainz about the performance of the car and came to the conclusion that the car acts differently in the same corner lap after lap. With the SF23 being very sensitive to the wind, the wind gusts at Miami sure did affect the performance of Ferrari. The car is inconsistent and performs differently depending on the wind speed.
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According to Autosport.com, Charles Leclerc said “I was speaking just now with Carlos and what we are lacking is consistency from the car.” “Not even from corner to corner, just in the same corner I can have a huge oversteery balance and then a huge understeery balance, and our car is so wind-effected.”
“This year we have a car that is much more wind sensitive, and we are struggling much more with that. So there is a lot of work going on that.”
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Watch this Story: Charles Leclerc’s Spinning High Speed Crash at the 2023 Miami GP Qualifying
What do you think? Will Ferrari make a comeback at the triple header?