Carlos Sainz rued bouncing through the high-speed corners “killing” Ferrari’s chances at claiming pole position at Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix as he qualified sixth.
Ferrari harboured ambitions that it would recover from a nightmare weekend in Canada last time out to be back in the battle at the sharp end on a conventional venue.
The Italian marque’s bid to get back on terms with its immediate rivals appeared poised to be bolstered with a substantial upgrade package accelerated to this round.
However, Ferrari was slowest from the leading quartet in the championship as both Charles Leclerc and Sainz ended up over three-tenths down on the benchmark lap.
Sainz has revealed that recurring porpoising across high-speed sections compromised Ferrari’s prospects and prevented either driver from improving on the third row.
“We’ve been struggling all weekend with the high-speed corners,” Sainz admitted.
“We still have this bouncing phenomenon that gives us a very tough time in the high-speed corners. Probably this is also killing a bit of the tyre for the third sector.
“The third year of these regulations and fighting this porpoising in high-speed corners when you put lateral load in the car and it’s been tough all weekend to try and get rid of it.
“And still we haven’t managed to get rid of it and we come to this track.
“And you can see McLaren and Red Bull zero bouncing and I think they’re doing a good job.”
Sainz divulged that Ferrari has trialled several things in an attempt to resolve the problem since the ground effect regulations were introduced in 2022 but to no avail.
“We’ve tried a few things, it’s still there,” he added. “We’ll keep digging and keep trying to look at things.
“We have a few ideas but still we cannot exactly get rid of it yet, so we’ll keep pushing.”
Sainz was the pacesetting driver in the final practice hour, prompting him to concede that he believed pole position on home soil was attainable up until Q2 occurred.
“Unfortunately around Q2 we kind of realised that Red Bull when they turned it up and McLaren when they turned it up they had an edge over us,” he lamented.
“I was disappointed because honestly after free practice I thought we had a chance to fight for pole position this weekend.
“But very quickly in Q2 we realised we were just a step too far. So yeah, we could sit here and argue three hundredths more we would be P3.
“But the reality is that I’m looking more at the gap to Lando than the gap to the Mercedes because three-tenths and a half is a lot of lap time around Barcelona.”
Like Leclerc, Sainz stresses the Maranello-based squad’s latest developments delivered the anticipated step and suspects its woes are down to track characteristics.
“They [the upgrades] seem to be working fine,” Sainz said. “Three and a half tenths [gap] with all the upgrades that everyone is bringing.
“You go back to Suzuka in Japan we were three and a half tenths, half a second maybe a bit more [slower],” he assessed.
“So it’s just I think very track-dependent right now for everyone.
“The only clear ones that they’ve joined the fight is Mercedes. And that Miami upgrade from McLaren has put them from a step back from us to a step forward.
“So we just keep digging and keep trying to bring things.
“We’re probably going to need to find something to unlock some more performance in this kind of medium, high-speed tracks where the bouncing and the ride is still important.”
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