Ferrari seek answers for Carlos Sainz's 'painful' Dutch GP

Sainz in Zandvoort — Photo: © LAT Images

Dutch Grand Prix

Ferrari seek answers for Sainz's 'painful' Dutch GP

Sainz dropped only one place in Sunday's race but struggled for pace throughout

Ian Parkes & Sam Hall

Monday 6 September 2021 17:40

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz was left perplexed as to why his pace vanished before a Dutch Grand Prix he has described as "a pain".

Sainz finished seventh at Zandvoort, and although only one place lower than his starting position, the Spaniard's race was compromised by an overall lack of speed.

Although ruling out a repeat of the tyre wear issues seen in France earlier this year, he conceded: "I cannot explain it.

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"I can feel why because the whole race was a bit of a pain for me. I was just very slow, sliding around and degrading the tyres.

“I lost the feeling with the car that I had on Friday and Saturday and, to be honest, on the laps to the grid I noticed something that I was not very happy with, and with the balance quite off.

“I basically struggled quite a lot the whole day. It is something we are going to look at during the next few days to try and find out exactly what happened.”

On the final lap, Sainz was passed by fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso, explaining there was nothing he could have done to hold the position.

"It was pretty much no fight because he flew past on the straight on DRS and by the time we arrived into turn one, he was already one or two car lengths ahead," assessed Sainz.

“I was struggling so much with the tyres that I couldn’t even get a good run out of the last corner. I defended the inside but he passed me easy into turn one.”

Ferrari "cannot exclude anything"

Despite his strong qualifying performance, for a period it looked as though Sainz would take no part in the Saturday session after crashing heavily in final practice.

Asked if the lack of race pace could have been a legacy of this impact, team principal Mattia Binotto was hesitant.

“As Carlos said, we don’t know yet what was the issue so we will look at everything," said Binotto.

"We will look at the car in terms of car robustness, in terms of car assembly. We will look at the set-up, we will look at the car balance.

“So at the moment we do not have any answers. I think that the crash of Saturday, I don’t think this [the race] was any consequence of it.

“If not, as well, Carlos did not have useful track time to try to understand the car a bit more and to have the right set up.

“We cannot exclude anything at the moment so we will look at all the aspects and I’m pretty sure in the next few days we will come out with a conclusion that will make him more comfortable for the next events.”