Carlos Sainz admits Ferrari's lack of pace in Saudi Arabi is a major concern
- Planet Sport writer
- 21 March 2023
With many believing Ferrari is the only team capable of challenging Red Bull this season, the fact that they only had the fourth-fastest car in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has alarm bells ringing.
With the excitement Formula 1 has enjoyed over the past few seasons, the memories of dull championships being won at a canter by Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had begun to drift into the realms of the forgotten.
However, fears have quickly resurfaced after the dominance shown by Red Bull in the first two Formula 1 Grands Prix of the season, in which they finished first and second in both.
For his part, Sainz admitted that he was quite shocked at how far behind the pace they were in Saudi Arabia.
"It came as a bit of a surprise," Spaniard Sainz told Diario AS newspaper.
"Because of the type of track Jeddah is, we expected to be faster than Mercedes and Aston Martin. But now we have two different types of asphalts, two different circuits and the race pace is not very good.
"I had a couple of scares following (Lance) Stroll. We know what the car's weakness is - we overheat the tyres. But we do that on our own so you can imagine that when we are behind another car it's even worse.
"We have to bring development now but we already know the plan that we have and where we have to improve it. But it's impossible to create pieces from one day to the next.
"But I trust Ferrari, I trust that we are going to improve the car and we have the ability to do it. We know exactly what problem the car has."
