Verstappen’s Record-Breaking Season Lays Bare Ferrari’s Shortcomings, Says Sainz.Carlos Sainz has expressed his concerns about Max Verstappen’s dominance in the 2023 season, stating that the Dutchman’s record-breaking performance may be a sign of Ferrari’s weaknesses. While Verstappen continues to set new records, Ferrari has struggled to keep up with their rivals, leaving them to fight for scraps with other teams. Sainz worries that this may be a sign of things to come, as Ferrari looks to close the gap in future seasons.
The 2022 season has seen Verstappen take the title by a massive margin, winning more races than any other driver in history and breaking the record for the biggest title-winning margin in Formula One. In contrast, Ferrari has struggled to keep pace with the Red Bull team, and has had to fight for points with teams like Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren.Sainz believes that Ferrari must address the issues that have caused them to fall behind in order to be competitive in future seasons. He acknowledged the strong performance of Verstappen, while also emphasizing the need for Ferrari to improve if they want to compete for titles in the future.
“It’s been a difficult season for Ferrari,” said Sainz at an event for one of the team’s sponsors, Estrella Galicia. “We had a car that was better on Saturday in qualifying than on Sunday in the race, and we went to each race with high hopes, but left many of them frustrated. Verstappen’s dominance is something that concerns me. It feels like he didn’t even have to go all out and still beat us, and that’s the scary part.””There were many races where he and Red Bull were 10 seconds ahead, and even if they could have taken another five seconds off us, they didn’t need to and probably didn’t go full throttle. That’s my theory, at least. That’s why I tell the team that we have to gain six tenths of a second, because I’m sure that they didn’t go 100 percent in many races.
“While Sainz acknowledged that Verstappen’s driving ability is a significant factor in his success, he also stressed the importance of Red Bull’s car development. The team has made huge strides in the last few seasons, and their car has become the benchmark for the rest of the grid.”We still need to review the season to know exactly what went wrong and where we need to improve,” said Sainz. “My feeling is that the package was good and there was a lot of improvement throughout the year, but not enough to close the gap with Red Bull.
“In the end, they managed to go a little further and win the championship, while we made a big step, but we want to take a big step next year to be able to fight for the championship.”The team’s improvement in the second half of the season was impressive, and they will hope to carry that momentum into 2024 and challenge Red Bull for the championship.Sainz acknowledged that Ferrari still have a lot of work to do in order to catch up to Red Bull, but he is confident that the team has the resources and talent to make it happen. “We are proud of the second half of the season because we made a lot of progress and found a lot of solutions that worked. But now we have to review everything and find out where we can improve even more.
“”We have the resources, the experience, the talent, and the passion to continue working hard and find those solutions.”Sainz’s faith in the In an interview, Sainz commented on the team’s progress in the second half of the season, but he also acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to be done before they can truly compete with Red Bull.”We’ve had a lot of meetings to analyze our season, and there’s a lot more to go through before we really know where we need to improve,” said Sainz. “We know that Red Bull has a great understanding of the current regulations, and they’ve shown that with their performance on Sunday. We have to find ways to match them in the race if we want to be true contenders.”
