Carlos Sainz says that the Azerbaijan and Singapore GPs represented “a wasted opportunity” after he failed to capitalise on Ferrari’s strong form on street venues.
The Spaniard crashed while battling for the podium in Baku, and then went off again on cold tyres at the start of Q3 in Singapore.
That left him 10th on the grid, from where he was able to recover to seventh place with a clever strategy with an early stop that got him out of traffic.
However that was still a lot less than he felt could have been achieved.
“I think in general, the last couple of races have been a bit of a wasted opportunity,” he said when asked by formu1a.uno.
“And I’m not happy with how the things have gone on these last two weekends. At the same time, you never know what there’s around the corner, and we might be surprised with how we can perform in Austin, Mexico, Vegas and these tracks.
“So I’m going to keep myself optimistic six races left in this long year, but yeah, going to work on my weaknesses, and put myself in a better position for the last six races.”
Expanding on what he needs to improve Sainz said: “Just try and feel a bit more confident going into Turn 1 in qualifying, because clearly these last few weekends haven’t been the best approach.
“So I’m hopeful that we can qualify a bit further up, like we were doing at the beginning of the year. And that makes the whole weekend a lot easier.”
Sainz’s life was made more difficult in Singapore when he was obliged to go wide at the first corner to avoid Franco Colapinto. That left him in 12th, with even more work to do.
“Honestly, starting from the dirty side, I actually got a decent start,” he said. “But going into Turn 1, I think there was a Williams doing a bit of a banzai move.
“And obviously, with how much we have to play on the championship, I had to take avoiding action. And if not, I would have probably had a big contact from the Williams.
“And from there, we obviously were even further back in the midfield. And we took a bit of a bold, aggressive strategy, pitting so early to try and get out of the that midfield battle, and undercut the whole midfield, which we did, and then go to the end on the hard, which worked for us.
“So yeah, bit compromised by the start, but then some good overtakes, some good pace when we needed it, and at least we made it through the field, if not something similar to what happened to Checo [getting stuck] could have happened to us.”
Sainz had to do a long 49-lap stint on the hard tyre, but he says it was not a problem.
“I managed to actually do a pretty good job and find a balance between overtaking a lot of cars and managing the tyres to the end,” he said.
“It was never going to be an easy task, but I think I did a reasonable job about it, and I managed to bring home P7 after being very far back after the start, and having to take avoiding action.”
