Carlos Sainz is remaining coy over speculation that he suffered a crash during Pirelli’s 18-inch tyre testing programme earlier this week.
Sainz and Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc were both present at Jerez as Pirelli began 2021 running of the 18-inch tyres that will be introduced full-time into Formula 1 next year.
Speculation emerged following the tests that Sainz had suffered a sizeable impact during the event in a mule Ferrari car.
The Spaniard offered no detailed insight into the reported incident, commenting: “Obviously Pirelli testing is completely private.
“So honestly, answering questions that are coming from somewhere else is difficult for me because I don’t know how much we can tell contractually about what happened in the test.
“But if something happened that I’m not going to tell you, it was very minor.”
Ferrari enters the new season on the back of a troubling campaign that saw it slip to P6 in the Constructors’ Championship.
Team Principal Mattia Binotto projected optimism, believing the team has recovered a lot of its lost speed for 2021.
However, Sainz says that without knowing how strong their rivals are, it is impossible to estimate where it will sit in the pecking order this season.
“It’s impossible to know,” Sainz admitted. “We know what we have done, we know what our simulations say, where we should be in terms of top speeds and drag and power etc.
“We obviously have all of those numbers – but without the numbers of our competitors in front of us, it’s almost impossible to predict where that is going to put us.
“So I’m happy and proud of the efforts of the whole team, I’ve seen good progress but until we see what our rivals have done, it’s going to be impossible to know if it’s enough or not.”
