Although Sainz was aware from testing that Red Bull had a significant lead in terms of long-run pace, he thought Ferrari’s ability to catch Perez, at least on a track where Red Bull has performed well, was a “good surprise.”
It has given him hope that Ferrari could be able to contend for race victories this season when Formula 1 moves to tracks where degradation is less of a problem.
“I knew it was going to be really difficult to defeat the Red Bulls, even if I wasn’t sure if they had a three- or four-tenth advantage—depending on the track conditions, maybe not even half a second.They also retained a fresh
You guys need to consider that we’ve been testing here three days and I’ve been seeing that Red Bull degradation on soft, and it’s exactly the same as ours on the hard,” Sainz stated to media including PlanetF1.com after the race.
“So as soon as I knew Red Bull had a new soft for the last stint and Checo had it, it’s not like I went ‘okay, this is my chance’.
“I’ve seen the long runs they did on the C3 tyre in testing and you could see that they basically have the same deg on the soft as what everyone has on the hard, so I wasn’t getting too excited.
“Also, I was in a bit of an uncomfortable position because you’re there in the two, three second margin, which is where you get all the dirty air, but you don’t get the advantage of the DRS and the slipstream, so you’re just sliding a bit more.
