Carlos Sainz has admitted that he couldn’t push the limits of his Ferrari Formula 1 car during practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix due to his ongoing bout of illness.
Sainz returned to his hotel and missed his media commitments on Wednesday having fallen unwell, but he drove through the sickness barrier to get behind the wheel.
The Spaniard wound up seventh in the second practice hour, 0.628s behind Fernando Alonso’s benchmark time and three-tenths adrift of team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Sainz admitted that he drove beneath his overall potential at the high-speed Jeddah circuit, having encountered a “difficult day” inside the cockpit of the Ferrari SF-24.
“The last 24 hours have been tough and difficult for me,” he said.
“Today was all about trying to get myself on track and learn as much as possible from the car, without really pushing too much the limits, as I was still a bit on the non-ideal side.
“We managed to complete the programme without issues. Hopefully tomorrow I’m feeling better, even if probably I will not be 100%.
“But feeling better will allow me to be more on the limit and perform a good Saturday.”
Sainz was 0.505s from the top in sixth during the daytime opening practice session earlier on Thursday’s running and noted that Jeddah’s high-speed nature has made things “tough from a physical point of view.
“It’s a lot more demanding for the car but also for the driver.
“So, a tricky day, as I said, but we managed to get it done.
“Now, we’ll go and take some breaths and come back tomorrow stronger.”
Tomorrow offers a final practice session for drivers to get acquainted with both car and circuit ahead of qualifying.
But in Sainz’s case, however, improvement lies more in his health status.
An adverse impact made by his poor health is that the Spaniard was also unable to string together positive race simulations, leaving him with work to do if he wants to repeat his strong podium performance from the F1 season-opener in Bahrain.
“Today is very difficult to read into lap times,” Sainz said.
“But tomorrow is qualifying, we will prepare everything and try to go for qualifying.
“Sunday (Saturday….), will be a bit of a new day as today my long runs were not the most ideal ones.”
On ultimate pace in the more representative second practice session on Thursday, Sainz and Ferrari fell into the mix with fellow top teams Aston Martin, Red Bull and Mercedes as the pecking order heading into qualifying Friday remains unclear.
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