Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz lamented a sluggish start to the race which saw him miss out on a potential chance to score a podium in Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Sainz qualified as the head Ferrari at the Hungaroring in fourth but lost that advantage over Lewis Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc as he dropped to seventh.
The Spaniard also slipped behind compatriot Fernando Alonso and while he regained the spot in the opening laps, track position would prove decisive in the outcome.
Sainz lost too much ground in the nascent stages and couldn’t capitalise on Max Verstappen’s collision with Lewis Hamilton, who took third behind the two McLarens.
“Obviously disappointed, because the start cost me pretty much the whole race,” Sainz lamented.
“First bad start of the season. So it’s not like I can be too hard on myself or on the team.
“We need to analyse whether it was my mistake in the procedure, or whether we just had too aggressive clutch settings for the start.
“We just paid the price with that wheelspin that then got me off the line. So we’ll have to have a look and analyse it.”
Sainz conceded that being situated on the dirtier inside line on the grid compromised his advances, but reiterated that he was not concerned with his bodged launch.
“The dirty side of the grid you’re a bit more on the limit with clutch slip always,” he added.
“I don’t know if we were too aggressive on the targets, or if I just simply did a procedure mistake. This is what we need to analyse.”
“At the same time as I said, one bad start in the whole season. All the other starts have been great.
“So I’m going to try not be too hard with myself or the team, and it’s just a shame that it’s happened at the track where the start is probably more important.”
Ferrari introduced a revised floor last weekend in a bid to cure the bouncing problems that have been exasperated since the marque’s latest update package in Spain.
Sainz, who’s claimed he isn’t “convinced” about the SF-24 in its current guise, contended that his hampered race meant he wasn’t able to draw an accurate conclusion.
“It seemed okay,” he stated regarding Ferrari’s current platform. “Honestly, difficult to judge from my side, because I was always playing catch up.”
“Especially in the first two stints I had to overtake cars at the beginning of my stints, which always compromises the tyre deg.
“Having to go on the marbles and use the tyre at the beginning of the stints, to use the peak of the tyre, rather than nursing it in, and then being fast in the second half of the stint.
“The only positive was the third stint, quite quick with that Medium, and then it degraded a bit too much at the end, which didn’t allow me to pass Max and Charles there at the end.”
Like team-mate Leclerc, Sainz has warned that Ferrari is braced to endure a tougher outing this weekend upon a return to a higher-speed track at Spa-Francorchamps.
“Always been one of our toughest tracks as a team. I think we’ve always struggled there in the last two years,” he acknowledged.
“At the same time, I feel like you never know our low downforce rear wing might work a bit better this year, and we might be a bit more performing.
“So obviously, always optimistic, at the same time realistic.”
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