Sainz: 'I can imagine why you guys are starting to take conclusions'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Ferrari was fast during the F1 winter tests in Barcelona, and the team also drove the largest number of laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Carlos Sainz understands that people point to Ferrari as the surprise package, but stresses that he has no idea about the comparison between the teams.
Sainz drove a whopping 236 laps in the three days Ferrari was allowed to test in Barcelona. His teammate Charles Leclerc accounted for the other 203 laps Ferrari put behind its name. Besides all those laps and thus the biggest set of data, Ferrari also had fast times on the C3 tyre. Leclerc drove a 1:19:689 and Sainz was half a second slower. Max Verstappen was the only man between them.
Sainz has understanding, but no idea
Although times say little during F1 test days, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton, among others, warn about Ferrari's speed. Sainz thinks it is still very early for these statements. The Spaniard himself is still completely in question about how the Ferrari F1-75 will do against the other cars. Autosport.com quotes the Madrid native: "I can imagine why you guys are starting to take conclusions and maybe try to put a bit of a pecking order, but for us, we really have no clue."
According to Sainz, an important fact is that the teams do not know how much fuel the other teams are driving with and how the engine is tuned during the tests. This can vary a lot from team to team during the test day as each team uses its own schedule of when to test what. A team will test a long run on different tyres, short runs on different tyres, qualifying laps, but during the first days of testing the teams are mainly busy collecting useful data; does reality match the predictions from the wind tunnel?