Saint: “Ferrari is a young team that is constantly learning and maturing”

Since the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of July, the Maranello team has lost its stride in F1-75 development against Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB18, which has emerged as the leading car in the second half of this F1 season – giving the Dutchman the Victory enabled last 5 GPs and essentially his back-to-back championship.

The Ferrari F1-75 hasn’t slowed down, as demonstrated during a round of qualifying tests in Budapest and Zandvoort in the Netherlands. What she has lost is the ability she had in the first half of the season to control the tires, making her uncompetitive in Sunday’s races.

But back home in Monza, Italy, the Scuderia entered the race much more competitively than expected at a track perfectly suited to the RB18, and although Charles Leclerc missed out on the win over Max Verstappen there, it left encouraging signs for their attempt to recover . And at the same time she left Mercedes far behind, who had gradually become a threat to her.

“If I hadn’t had the penalty, we would have put a lot of pressure on Max with two cars in the fight for the lead.” said Carlos Sainz on Ferrari’s performance at the Milan circuit. “But unfortunately I had the penalty, we couldn’t separate the strategy (after the virtual safety car) so we let Max choose the opposite strategy from Charles.

I think if we stop taking penalties and go to tracks that are more convenient for us, like in Singapore, and I’m fighting, then we’ll have two cars to play the game with Max. And then I think we’ll be in a better position. My absence from fighting for the top (at Monza) with my pace was crucial I think.”

Coupled with the criticism Ferrari received earlier this year for some strategic mistakes and reliability issues, the Spaniard commented on the F1-75’s performance at Monza “It was a good reaction from our team that is developing, a team that is learning a lot from this difficult season and that has made a big leap compared to last year to put us back in the fight for wins.

But we still make mistakes, we still learn. We are a new team and are still at the beginning of our cooperation. I think we’ve made progress this year and although the second half of the season was difficult, we’ve gained enough knowledge to use in the final races of the year and also next season.” closed.

“I want the rest of our year to go smoothly, especially given what happened to us this year. I want the last part of the year to be quiet and less unexpected things happening to us so that we can get into a rhythm for the new year that we get another chance.

We must try to improve some areas such as B. the reliability and stability of our performance. We have to remember that this year we faced a team like Red Bull that does everything perfectly. We have to learn from that and become the team that works like this next year.” said the 27-year-old.

Finally, speaking about the harsh – and sometimes unfair – criticism Scuderia had received for their mistakes this year, Saint concluded: “It was something I had been warned about. They told me to be prepared because the press in Italy is going to be very tough. But you only realize that when you’re part of the team. I’ve read a lot of criticism about that Team, but that’s part of it. It’s nice to be part of such a big organization and such a legendary team in the automotive world. I don’t see that as a problem.”