Carlos Sainz has revealed that he has been conducting set-up experiments on his Ferrari car on select Fridays throughout 2023.
Ferrari have endured an inconsistent campaign stymied by an unpredictable SF-23 car, leaving the team third in the standings.
However, Ferrari enjoyed an upturn in momentum beyond the summer break, culminating in Sainz converting his second successive pole position into the only non-Red Bull victory of the year in Singapore.
But after gaining the upper hand on Charles Leclerc in the first three races after the shutdown, Sainz lagged regularly behind his team-mate at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Speaking ahead of last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, Sainz denied that Ferrari’s latest development – a modified floor – contributed to his Suzuka defeat to Leclerc.
“I think it has nothing to do with the upgrade,” he said when that possibility was put to him.
“I think Charles enjoyed a very good weekend in Japan and from my side I got a bit lost on Friday trying different stuff on the car, on the setup.
Sainz discloses that it’s an “approach that I’ve had this season” to try and get on top of Ferrari’s 2023 troublesome car in the hope that it reaps better rewards down the line.
“This season I’ve chosen certain Fridays to try different mechanical side things and items in the car to try and make it a bit more drivable and a bit more likeable to me.
“I chose Japan as one weekend to do that. Unfortunately, everything I tried didn’t work, but by the time I was in qualifying, I had lost a bit of time.
“But then in the race I was very strong again with very more of a baseline car, so I know what to do for that for the next weekend.
“And I have had an approach that I’ve been taking this year that maybe doesn’t pay off in the short term in the race that you’re competing, but it’s good for the medium to long term of a year.”
The Italian marque’s resurgence emanated from running extensive tests at Zandvoort, the race straight after the season resumed.
Sainz also admitted that he had held a productive meeting with his engineers, which allowed him to pursue a set-up direction that he had long been striving to adopt this year.
Pressed on whether he had unlocked any lessons at Suzuka, Sainz replied: “Yeah 100% and that is what I was hoping for.
“I chose Japan because it had a lot of high-speed content. So it’s a lot of things to learn before for example, the high speed of Austin.
“That’s why I chose Japan to do test on all that stuff. I know what can work on the car and what can’t work here and yes I as I said this is the approach sometimes in F1 especially when you have no testing anymore, you need to choose your test days let’s say, and that’s what I did in in in Japan.”
Sainz has also heeded caution in confirming Ferrari has fully gotten on top of its tyre degradation concerns, despite showcasing promising signs in recent rounds.
“I think it’s too early to tell,” Sainz warned. “You know, I’m always very, very cautious in this aspect, especially because the only big change was the floor in Japan and we know the floor wasn’t a huge thing in any sense.
“So I think it’s still early days to judge whether our tyre wear situation and our degradation has got better. I preferred to take more samples, more examples to see if that’s really the case.
