Sainz identifies Ferrari's 'intrinsic weakness of the car'

Speaking to GPblog and others in the paddock, the Ferrari driver lacked enthusiasm after finding the car difficult across the last two days at Silverstone: "No surprise really given our recent struggles in high-speed tracks," he revealed, "coming to the king of high-speed like Silverstone, it was always going to be a difficult weekend." The Italian team started the season strong, with both drivers achieving a race victory. Although they still remain second in the Constructors' behind Red Bull Racing, McLaren are quickly catching up. Leclerc also fell to third in the Drivers' standings behind Lando Norris. 

Are Ferrari improving? 

This weekend, the team went back to the Imola spec, however, Sainz was not entirely convinced by this decision, suggesting it hasn't helped the performance. "It hasn't given us any extra performance. It's just given us a little bit more consistency in the high-speed given we have a bit less bouncing on that floor and we need to make the car as consistent or as predictable as possible in the high-speed knowing that obviously we're not going forwards or backwards." Nevertheless, for the Spaniard, the biggest weakness seems to be the bouncing which the drivers are experiencing: "From the beginning of the year we already had a bit of bouncing so, it's still an intrinsic weakness of the car. But the new one was clearly worse than the old one and of course, at Silverstone." 

Despite the team's struggles though, Sainz does remain somewhat hopeful that the team are heading in the right direction and can bring back their strong performance. "I think the direction is clear, it's whether we're capable of delivering it on track and giving us what we need," he shared. "We proved it last year that we developed very well throughout the year. We proved it again during the winter that we made this car clearly more consistent and better. But for sure the recent steps haven't been what we expected," the Ferrari driver concluded.