“Time to wait and see what Ferrari can do” – Carlos Sainz believes Mercedes were sandbagging during pre-season testing in Bahrain.
Mercedes were unexpectedly poor during pre-season testing in Bahrain, with Valterri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton both struggling. Red Bull, the most impressive team, is unwilling to believe that is their true performance though. The same goes for ex-Red Bull driver Carlos Sainz, who, speaking to Mundodeportivo.com, admitted he does not really trust the results of the three-day test.
“I believe nothing about Mercedes or what I see from the other teams. It’s still too soon.”
“I don’t know when I’m going to be 100% with the car, but I think we’ll have to wait for more races. More or less, what we’re seeing from the car is what we expected. We are happy with what we see and relatively satisfied with the correlation between track and simulator. And now what needs to be seen is where the others are.
“The Red Bull looks good, the McLaren I’m sure it’s going to be there, because the car, just with a smaller engine, that already allows you to improve the aerodynamics of the car and have more power, better and better.
“So McLaren is going to take a step forward. Alpine doesn’t look bad either, and now it is time to wait and see what Ferrari can do.”
Carlos Sainz focusing on this year’s Ferrari car
Sainz is making his Ferrari debut this season and therefore refused to be drawn up in comparison to last season. Ferrari struggled massively last season, finish P6, their worst in over 4 decades.
“I can’t compare it with anything because I don’t know last year’s car and so I don’t really know how much progress has been made. In theory, this year’s cars are going to be slower, they are going to have other characteristics, and therefore, Charles not talking bad about the car is already a positive thing.
“I for my part am focusing more on myself, on trying to learn about the car, the team, trying to adapt, to be comfortable… so I can’t afford to make comparisons yet because I don’t have that experience.
Also read: WATCH: Carlos Sainz collides into Kimi Raikkonen during Day 3 of pre-season testing in Bahrain
