Carlos Sainz frustrated with his stint on hard tires in Miami
Carlos Sainz stated that his Miami Grand Prix was "difficult" because he wasn't able to fully extract the potential from his Ferrari without excessively wearing out his tires.
Qualified in third position on the grid, Sainz dropped to fifth place by the checkered flag, losing positions to Max Verstappen and George Russell during the race.
He stopped early at the pit stop to switch from medium tires to hard tires, in order to overtake Fernando Alonso for second place. However, he quickly realized that the performance of his tires was starting to decline.
« I was a bit surprised to see how much we struggled with the hard tires after our very good stint with the mediums,” he said. « We tried the undercut on Fernando, obviously it worked but we had to push the tires for three or four laps to get ahead.”
For a reason I ignore, with the SF-23, we have no room for maneuver if we want to push. I had to stay below the limit for the rest of the race if I wanted to reach the finish line. With the wind conditions and the hardness of the tires, this difficult relay became too long for us.
“At the moment, I can’t push, especially in racing,” he added. “As soon as you push one lap, you have a good first lap, but the next lap you are three tenths slower.”
Even though Sainz was able to overtake Alonso thanks to his previous pit stop, he quickly fell back behind the Aston Martin.
“We went for an undercut and it worked,” he stated. “It’s just that in hindsight, with the car we currently have, we have very little flexibility to try an undercut or an overcut,” he explained.
In terms of strategy, it was the right decision at the right time. Looking back, I think we could never have finished higher than Fernando.
He admitted to being “surprised” by the issues because he thought the team was making improvements.
“This race showed us that we still have work to do,” he confided.
