Carlos Sainz has denied Ferrari’s one-lap deficit to Red Bull at Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix is a setback for the team as it expected to lag behind the champions.
Ferrari’s 1-2 finish at the previous round in Melbourne heightened hopes that the Italian marque could repeat that competitive showing to battle Red Bull this weekend.
However, Sainz, who was the lead Ferrari as Charles Leclerc struggled to eighth, wound up fourth behind the two Red Bull drivers and the lead McLaren of Lando Norris.
Sainz concedes that his 0.485-second deficit to Max Verstappen’s pole position benchmark was the maximum he could extract from Ferrari’s SF-24 car over a single lap.
“I did a really good lap today,” he said. “It was one of those good ones, so let’s see. I think in the race hopefully it’s closer, a [1 minute] 28.6 in quali is what we have.”
The Spaniard is adamant that Ferrari approached F1’s annual trip to Suzuka with the expectation that the track’s high-speed sweeps would favour its main competitors.
“I think we said it coming into the weekend, if you look at last year I was one-second off pole here, this year I am half a second more or less,” he contended.
“I think the step and the progress is there but this probably a bit of a bogey track in terms of the pure performance.
“It’s clear that this sort of long high-speed corner is where Red Bull and McLaren are a step ahead of us, but hopefully tomorrow we can fight for the podium in the race.
“I think a win is still out of reach but with McLaren hopefully we can get a bit closer in the race.”
Sainz divulged that his caution on Ferrari’s chances derived from the knowledge that its revised car couldn’t overturn the one-second deficit it held in Japan last term.
“That’s why yesterday I was trying to calm everyone down a bit because we knew we were one second away last year and we haven’t improved the car one second from last year to this year in a place like Suzuka, so it was always going to be tricky,” he reasoned.
“But I am very happy with how the car feels, it feels a step better on this sort of tracks and I did a couple of very clean good laps today to put myself in a position to fight tomorrow.”
The outgoing Ferrari driver has also rubbished the notion that the Maranello-based squad has been issued with a reality check following Red Bull’s front-row lockout.
“I think to fight for wins we will try when we go to the Monzas or Singapores or Miami we will be in the mix,” he added. “But at other tracks, the Red Bull is simply a much better package.”
“As I said in the press conference we knew that this car on this type of track would be more difficult this weekend, but we keep our heads down and try everything that we can.”
Ferrari appeared stronger on the long runs over one lap during practice, prompting Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko to proclaim that the Scuderia could pose a threat.
But despite Verstappen also admitting that he was unsatisfied with his race simulations, Sainz highlighted that the Austrian outfit tends to leave more pace in reserve.
“They are not better [than Red Bull] it just looks a bit like that,” Sainz said regarding Ferrari’s long-run comparison against Red Bull.
“They always run really, really slow on Fridays so it looks like we are going to beat them on Sunday and then we are 20 seconds off.
“They are always super quick on Sundays and I think they sandbag a bit on the long runs because they know it is their strength.
“Maybe we are a bit closer but it’s not like we are going to find half a second tomorrow.”
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