Sainz confident after difficult period: 'We are at a turning point'
F1 News
- Toby McLuskie
Ferrari hoped to have a serious chance of winning a world title in 2023, but for now, the Italian team seems to have been overtaken by Mercedes and Aston Martin. Last season's Austrian Grand Prix was the last race Ferrari won thanks to Charles Leclerc (the British GP was before the Austrian one at the time). So it has been almost a year since the Scuderia stood on the top step of the podium.
"Yeah. Also, a year since I nearly got burned," Carlos Sainz responded to this observation at the press conference in Spielberg. The Spaniard was referring to the moment in Austria when his Ferrari caught fire. "But yeah, It's been a long year for sure. And I think from Austria last year until now, it's been tough."
Ferrari pulled through difficult period
From the race in Spielberg almost 12 months ago, Ferrari entered a dip, having previously been Red Bull Racing's main challenger. "We had a bit of a dip in form towards the end of last year in race pace and then we carried that, let's say, difficult moment into this year and we are in exactly the turning point, or in the point of where we are trying to turn things around to make the car competitive again and to try and win again."
Sainz does realise that the latter is not going to be easy. After all, Red Bull has no measure on them for now. Although Ferrari can regularly give the Austrians a hard time in qualifying, the speed is not there on Sunday. So win again? "It's not going to be easy because there's another team called Red Bull that have killed everyone, killed the opposition in a way, no? And we're not the only ones suffering from it. There are teams also, like Mercedes, that have suffered their good job, and it's down to us now to revert it and to try our best to win again," Sainz said.