Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz said he was relieved to have to put on an offensive display en route to a podium finish at Formula 1’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Sainz may have been out-qualified by team-mate Charles Leclerc on Friday evening, but the Spaniard put on a feisty display on his way to a third-place finish.
The Spaniard crossed the line 25 seconds adrift of race winner Max Verstappen but had kept Sergio Perez in his sights, trailing the second Red Bull by two-and-a-half seconds.
Having slipped to fifth off the line, Sainz had to battle his way past Leclerc and Mercedes’ George Russell to claim an “important” podium for the Ferrari driver.
“I think it’s just important to start the season well, start the season with a strong race, not for my future, just for myself,” said Sainz, who is in his final season with Ferrari.
“Last year I spent a lot of the races looking in my mirror, saving tyres, defending my position. And I remember at the car launch saying ‘This year I wish we had a car to go racing’ and attack people and don’t care too much about the tyres and make some overtaking moves and look forward rather than look backwards.
“And it’s exactly what we got. An attacking race with really good race pace and from there, everything felt really good to finish P3. It was a straightforward and easy race, but I enjoyed it a lot.”
Following confirmation of Lewis Hamilton’s imminent arrival at Ferrari in 2025, Sainz is left with a point to prove as he looks to secure his long-term future in the sport.
Sainz’s attacking performance in Bahrain will have impressed many in the paddock after spending the latter stages of the 2023 season struggling to fight his way forward.
“Yeah, it’s actually a bit of a relief because I remember last year the last race where I was attacking was Austria,” Sainz told the media in the post-race press conference.
“We’re talking 13, 14 races ago and then the rest of the races last year you just had to manage. You had to look in the mirror and just control your pace and there were very few opportunities to go and overtake people.
“I love going racing and I love going overtaking, being aggressive, attacking. And with last year’s car, it was simply impossible to do that. As soon as we were in dirty air, as soon as we overheated the tyres, as soon as we pushed a bit too much, it was game over.
“And this year, coming to the most rear limited track of the season, the highest degradation, and doing an overtaking, attacking race for me is a relief, and it gives me a feeling that we will be able to do this more often this year.”
However, Sainz isn’t expecting to be able to muster the same level of performance week-in and week-out due to the Ferrari’s inherent strengths in qualifying.
“It doesn’t mean we will do it every race at all, because I still think one of the strongest parts of our car is qualifying.
“So I think we will still qualify maybe ahead of what maybe our true position is, but at least we’re not degrading and defending like crazy like we were doing last year.
Asked whether he and Ferrari can be the ‘real alternative’ to Red Bull in Formula 1’s 2024 season, Sainz responded: “I hope we can be, but I think we are a bit too far at the moment to mount a proper challenge for race win if they put everything together and they make everything perfect.
“But the base that we have on the car this year, and the aero platform, and just the car that we’ve put on track, feels and drives a lot more normal than last year.
“And from here, if we offset this level of downforce, you know, and we just keep adding downforce to this car, I think we can start getting closer to them. But we need to start doing it from now because if not they’re going to start pushing and getting far away.”
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