Carlos Sainz admits that bouncing on the straights around the Baku City Circuit is damaging his confidence.
On-board footage from Sainz’s car during Friday practice showed that the Ferrari driver was porpoising severely along Baku’s long straights.
Bouncing was also an issue for several other drivers, with many cars bottoming out at high speed during the lap.
Sainz says that he and the Ferrari engineers will investigate the problem, as it was evidently worse on his side of the garage compared to the experience of team-mate Charles Leclerc.
“It’s certainly something I’m looking into,” Sainz said. “Today for some reason I struggled a lot with this phenomenon that hasn’t been there in the last few races.
“It looked particularly bad on our side of the garage. It’s something I need to dig into in the data with the engineers because it is something really annoying around here.
“It was taking out a bit of [my] confidence on the straights, in the braking. So hopefully for tomorrow we can solve it.”
Sainz ended the second practice session fifth on the timesheet, just over one second down on the pace set by Leclerc.
However, Sainz is somewhat satisfied with his day, believing Ferrari made a strong step forward from one practice session to the next.
“It was a good day, I think we made some good steps as a team,” he said. “We certainly looked more competitive in FP2 than FP1.
“I think it looks super tight between us [Ferrari and Red Bull]. They tend to have more straight-line speed, we tend to be a bit stronger in the corners.
“I think it’s going to be a tough fight with them. Checo [Perez] looks to be on form here again. So it’s going to be a tight battle with them, like it has been the whole year, really.”
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