Sainz qualified fourth in Hungary but lost two places in the race
Carlos Sainz was left frustrated in Hungary after a poor start saw him waste his fourth place on the grid and lose out to both Lewis Hamilton and team mate Charles Leclerc.
From the dirty side Sainz slipped from fourth to an initial seventh, with Fernando Alonso also briefly getting ahead before the Ferrari driver repassed.
However Sainz remained behind Hamilton and Leclerc for the duration of the race and had to settle for sixth place at the chequered flag.
“Obviously disappointed, because the start cost me pretty much the whole race,” he said when asked by this writer about his getaway.
“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, and we just paid the price with that wheelspin that then get me off the line. So we’ll have to have a look and analyse it.”
Sainz conceded that being on the dusty right side of the grid, traditionally an issue in Hungary, probably didn’t help.
“The dirty side of the grid you’re a bit more on the limit with clutch slip always,” he said. “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 ran an updated version of its latest floor in Hungary, where bouncing was not an issue because of the lack of fast corners.
“It seemed okay,” he said of the package. “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, that was quite quick with that medium tyre, 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.”
Sainz said it was no surprise that McLaren has moved into second in the constructors’ championship.
“I think it was a matter of time that McLaren would overtake us, given their performance and our performance,” he said.
“So yeah, it happened on a day where they were pretty much an easy one-two for them, and we were P4 and P6, which is more or less where we’ve been playing the last three or four races.
“Now it’s time to get our heads down. It’s going to take a bit of time to bring a package that is able to fight the McLaren.
“I don’t think we can bring it for Spa or the first race after the summer break, but hopefully soon after that we will come up with something, and that will close the gap and we can get back in the fight.”
He also acknowledged the recent improved form of Mercedes: “There have been a couple of races where in cold tracks or tracks that suit them, they can win the race, like we saw.
“Other tracks like here, we seem to be very on par with them. At the same time when you look at where they were eight races ago and where they are now, clearly they’ve outdeveloped us, and now it’s time for us to clearly try and hit our development targets.”
Sainz admitted that Spa could be tricky for the team, which has not been at its best at low drag venues in the ground effect era.
“Always been one of our toughest tracks as a team. I think we’ve always struggled there in the last two years.
“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.”
Adam Cooper F1 