Sainz wants to challenge Red Bull more often: 'Felt from lap 1 that I could win'
F1 News
Not Max Verstappen, but Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix. All weekend, the Spaniard showed great pace. In the race, it showed well. After the race, the Ferrari driver talked about whether he thinks his team got closer to Red Bull Racing.
Verstappen was allowed to start from pole position in Melbourne. The Dutchman got away well, but quickly lost his first place to Sainz, who took advantage of a moment from the Red Bull driver. Then, the world championship leader even had to abandon his race after his brakes caught fire.
Sainz took advantage and thus managed to win the Australian Grand Prix. Sergio Perez could no longer pose a danger either. The Mexican simply did not have the speed to get to the front. Throughout the weekend, Ferrari seemed to be very close to the Austrian racing stable. In the race, this also became clear.
Sainz wants to challenge Red Bull more often
However, Sainz does not think his team will be able to challenge Red Bull every weekend: "I think our car really worked really well this weekend, but I think it's going to be tough to keep it up there at every track until we bring an upgrade to close that gap that we saw in bahrain and Jeddah. But around Australia from Lap 1, it felt like a race winning car, and even if Red Bull were also quick and were on pole, that 1.15.9 in qualifying wasn't out of reach for us."
"There will be tracks where we are strong, like we saw last year and this year it seems like our race pace is better. Even on those tracks that we are stronger and together with a good development programme I hope that we can challenge Red Bull more often," the race winner of the Australian Grand Prix told the reporters.