Sainz: Bouncing main problem with Ferrari upgrade

After Charles Leclerc and Ferrari dominated the Monaco Grand Prix, a race in which Sainz finished in third, the team brought a comprehensive upgrade package for the Spanish GP in Barcelona, but it seemed to have backfired, as their performance dropped behind Mercedes.

Both drivers complained about bouncing with the revised SF-24, a problem with "ground effect" Formula 1 cars that we all though was behind us after early teething issues with this generation of cars when they were launched back in 2022.

Speaking to the media in Silverstone, including GrandPrix247, Sainz was asked whether it was difficult to bring effective upgrades to current F1 cars.

"100% a lot more difficult for the teams," he responded. "It's already super difficult for the driver to understand how to extract performance out of them in some corners, you feel like you can push flat out, in others you really need to control your driving style and be very disciplined in how to drive the car to find lap time.

"And for the engineers I see that it's a very similar thing, it's not as clear as a ten, five points of downforce and the car is quicker - because it sometimes create problems elsewhere. So a very challenging set of regulations that I think everyone in this grid at one point or another have struggled with those upgrades," Sainz explained.

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur insisted after introducing the team's latest upgrade that they still need more time to optimize it.

Sainz was asked whether there was still potential within the new package to unlock, he said: "For sure this new package still has potential to be optimized.

"But in the short term we for sure we want to understand whether we've done a step in the right direction or not - because that will help also future development. And this is now number one priority for the team. We accept and we realize that since Barcelona we have been less competitive than before Barcelona. And this obviously raises a bit our concerns to the package and we need to for sure try to understand as much as possible everything involved with it.

"And we want to do this exercise in the future, no? But at the same time, the others are not standing still. And they're progressing exponentially. So we're trying to keep up with that," he maintained.

As for the bouncing he and Leclerc were complaining about, the Spaniard was asked how much time it was costing them as it seemed earlier statements by team and driver gave the impression was given that time lost was not massive.

Sainz said: "Maybe I explained myself incorrectly. Bouncing 100% costs you time. What I think is that it costs you even more time than what you think. And not only the time that you lose by the bouncing in a high speed corner.

"But also the potential time that you might lose in other corners that you're not bouncing by the fact of having bouncing in a 6g high speed corner. So maybe I explained myself incorrectly, but for sure it costs laptime, maybe even more than what we think.

"No, it is the main problem. The main problem, I'll call it," he concluded when asked whether it was the only problem with Ferrari's recent upgrade.

Sainz won the British Grand Prix with Ferrari back in 2022 after starting from pole position.