Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has tempered Carlos Sainz’s claim over issues in Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, citing that no driver had an optimal weekend.
Sainz struggled to match Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc all weekend at Imola, as he qualified three-tenths behind and ended up 14 seconds back during the race.
However, the Spaniard revealed post-race that the mechanics on his side of the garage had diagnosed unspecified hitches on his SF-24 car that hampered his hopes.
Reviewing his outing, Sainz, who classified fifth after losing out to Oscar Piastri in the pit stops, said: “I think, well on my side I just struggled to be honest all weekend.
“After qualifying we found a couple of issues with the car that probably hold us back today a bit and it was not a very strong weekend at home here in front of the Tifosi.
“Now we need to have a look at how we can solve them and make a step forward from Monaco.”
With the field at the sharp end continuing to converge, Sainz rued the problem preventing him from extracting the much-needed pace from Ferrari’s upgraded package.
Asked whether the deficiencies that were discovered on his car were inherent and provided him with cause for concern, Sainz said: “No, they’re not from the upgrades.
“It’s something that we need to investigate carefully and I’m pretty sure we will find a solution. The only thing I would say is that when the field is so tight, one-two-tenths between the top five drivers, every single thing counts and I feel like this weekend we didn’t put together the best of packages and now we need to focus on putting that in Monaco.”
But while Vasseur didn’t dismiss Sainz’s admission, the Ferrari Team Principal outlined that several other competitors failed to produce a seamless showing at Imola.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen combated continuous discomfort with the balance on his Red Bull RB20, but he survived a threat from McLaren to convert pole into the win.
“Every single bit that you can have in this kind of weekend, when you are five or six [drivers] in two-tenths, for sure every single issue that you can have is crucial,” he said.
“But I think everybody had issues. I think nobody after the quali lap said, ‘I had the lap of my life and I had no issues and the balance was perfect’.
“And so it’s not good to have issues, but it’s good to understand what’s happened and when we have to work. And we will do it for next week.”
So if every other team had issues, then it’s okay for Ferrari to have issues as well?!