F1 cars "more fun" to drive with balance "experiments" - Sainz

Carlos Sainz has revealed the new generation of F1 cars are "more fun" despite struggles with oversteer and understeer.

Ferrari impressed throughout pre-season testing with the team coupling heavy mileage with performance to be touted as challengers to Red Bull for honours at the first race of the season in Bahrain.

With balance largely promising for most teams in the first test in Barcelona, there was some surprise with the struggles experienced in Bahrain last week with lock-ups and understeer the overriding theme of the three-day event.

But explaining understeer was not the only issue to affect cars, Sainz said: "There is oversteer everywhere.

"There is a lot of work to do on the balance to get the cars close to where they were last year in terms of balance.

“I think, in terms of performance, they are not that far away but the balance does feel a lot trickier than in other years."

Despite the difficulties in getting on top of balance issues, Sainz detailed his enjoyment of discovering fixes, adding: "It is also more fun, more things to experiment with, more things to develop.

"That is a good thing to have in Formula 1 as a reset from where we were coming over the last few years where the cars were just very close to perfect on balance and on driving them.”

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