Carlos Sainz has admitted there were few positives to take out of last weekend’s Formula 1 Portuguese Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver slumped from fourth to 11th during the race, struggling in the latter part with the medium compound tyres.
With Charles Leclerc coming home sixth, Sainz’s result was the first time Ferrari had not scored points in 2021.
“I didn’t have many positives to take because the I was not happy with how Sunday went,” the Spaniard admitted.
“It was a very bad race, a lost opportunity more than anything.
“After running fourth in the race, to finish 11th in this modern Formula 1 it means that something has gone clearly wrong and something has not quite worked out.
“Then with a bit more time to analyse, letting a few days by, a lot of analysis made by a team, by myself, trying to figure out what went on, we clearly we clearly didn’t do a good job all around.
“We’ve taken our conclusions, and we’ve taken our analysis, and we are going to try to build things in place for this weekend to try and get better.”
This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix is just Sainz’s fourth event for the Scuderia.
He sits in the same boat as many of his rivals who also swapped teams, as he works to understand his new machinery in a year which has seen comparatively little change to cars from last season.
For Ferrari, 2020 marked its worst season in Formula 1 in four decades, though looks to be bouncing back to be a solid contender towards the front of the midfield this year.
“There’s still things to improve things to get used to, things to understand, clearly, we didn’t [expect] that medium tyre to be to behave the way it did behave,” Sainz reasoned.
“We were very aggressive with the [pit] stop lap and everything and they didn’t go to plan.
“With what we had beforehand, we thought that was going to be okay, and it was clearly not the case.”
Ferrari heads into this weekend’s event fourth in the constructors’ championship.
Sainz sits eighth in the drivers’ competition with 14 points, two behind the man who replaced him at McLaren, Daniel Ricciardo.
Free Practice 1 for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix begins at 19:30 AEST this evening.
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