Carlos Sainz Sr has recently explained how proud he is of the progress his son, Carlos Sainz Jr, is making at Ferrari. The 61-year-old now hopes that the Italian outfit can take a step forward and can challenge Red Bull in 2024. Sainz Sr is adamant that Ferrari needs to take a step forward and cannot afford to lose any more ground.
While speaking to Autosprint (as quoted by f1.maximaal.nl), the 61-year-old said, “I have confidence that Ferrari will be able to take the missing step. The car of 2024 must be better than the SF-23. A leap forward must be made“.
Sainz Sr then explained how happy he is with the progress his son has made with Ferrari. The two-time Rally champion stated that what he admires most about his son is that he is always improving. Sainz Sr believes that the advantage that his son has is that he is vastly experienced despite still being young.
Sainz Sr then concluded his remarks by claiming that his son is at his peak performance levels at the moment. Meanwhile, Sainz Jr too hopes to continue his form in 2024 and help Ferrari in the best way possible to close the gap to the mighty Red Bull.
Carlos Sainz Jr is confident Ferrari can dethrone Red Bull in 2024
Ferrari had a disappointing start to the 2023 season as they found themselves as arguably the third or fourth fastest side. Both Aston Martin and Mercedes, who finished behind the Italian outfit in 2022, had the advantage over the Prancing Horse at the start of 2023.
However, as the season progressed, Ferrari managed to improve significantly. They made steady gains over the course of the campaign and finished just three points behind second-placed Mercedes.
It is this reason why Carlos Sainz Jr is confident that Ferrari can dethrone Red Bull in 2024 if they discover enough performance in the SF-24. While speaking in an interview with his longtime sponsor Estrella Galicia 0.0 after the conclusion of the 2023 season, Sainz Jr (as quoted by marca.com) stated,
“There are still a lot of meetings to analyze everything. In January, there will be a review a month before the start of the race and then you will see everything better. Red Bull understands very well what the car has to have with this regulation“.
Where does Sainz Jr believe his team needs to improve?
Carlos Sainz Jr expects Ferrari to reduce the gap to Red Bull in terms of race pace. He believes that Ferrari not just managed to match Red Bull during qualifying, but also beat them on some occasions. However, when it came to the main race, Sainz Jr revealed that they were about half a second slower per lap.
This is the reason why Sainz hopes that Ferrari can find answers to Red Bull’s great advantage of “versatility on Sunday“. The Spaniard believes that since Red Bull are so much quicker than their rivals and also have lesser tire degradation, they have the flexibility of choosing multiple strategies for the main race to ensure that no one can challenge them.
After stating the same, Sainz Jr then concluded his remarks by revealing his highlight from the 2023 season. He revealed that without a doubt, his race win in Singapore was the highlight of the campaign. Sainz Jr stated that he will never forget that moment since that was the only race a non-Red Bull driver won in 2023.
Another thing that Sainz revealed he will take away from the campaign is the ups and downs. The 29-year-old believes that the 2023 campaign challenged him and Ferrari immensely to find solutions as they were always lagging behind their rivals.
