Sainz: I don’t feel Ferrari's leadership is light

Ferrari have lost the services of David Sanchez who was their head of vehicle concept within the team before jumping ship to McLaren.

After that, Laurent Mekies who was the Scuderia's Sporting Director since the 2019 Formula 1 season, was announced as the replacement of Franz Tost as AlphaTauri team boss, the latter leaving his post at the end of this season.

Mekies was not present on the Ferrari pit wall during the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix, and was replaced by Diego Ioverno during the team's Spa weekend.

Speaking of Mekies, Sainz said: "Obviously [he] was a very important figure in Ferrari the last few years and he’s been a huge contributor to the team.

"And honestly, I had a really good relationship with him, and he was very proactive and very good to the team in general.

"I think we were all very appreciative and that’s probably why he’s going to a team principal role in another team because he was doing a good job for us.

"But the transition has been done already. He’s been very helpful also in helping Diego to learn. He’s relearned the job that he was doing and I’m not concerned at all with the transition period because it’s already been smoothened out," he explained.

But with all these departures from the team, does Sainz feel the team's management structure is light; the Spaniard commented: "No, I’m 100% sure that the structure we have now is also working well for the development of next year’s car.

"I don’t feel at all like it’s light," he insisted. "And I also feel like Fred is doing the best he can do to reinforce the team. But also, the people we have have very clear targets in mind.

"The car is being developed nicely in the wind tunnel and I don’t feel light at all. And if anything, I’d rather have a lighter a year now and know that we are not really fighting for a World Championship and make sure we are restructuring, we are recruiting and we are strong for when the tougher challenges come hopefully in the near future," Sainz maintained.

Ferrari have reportedly poached Mercedes' Performance Director Loic Serra as they look to reinforce their technical structure following the latest staff departures.