Carlos Sainz admits what ‘gave Ferrari scares’ in 2023 F1 season

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Carlos Sainz has now admitted that the pre-season Bahrain test gave Ferrari ‘scares’ before the 2023 Formula 1 season as they did not understand what they were missing.

Formula 1 spent three days lapping the Bahrain International Circuit in February for the only official winter test session. The series elected for a single week of warm weather testing two weeks before the season-opening Bahrain GP. But the test showed Ferrari were off the pace.

Ferrari recorded the third and fourth fastest lap times of the first test. But Sainz and Charles Leclerc were both four-tenths of a second slower than Max Verstappen. Sainz also slipped to ninth and Leclerc to eighth on the second day. They would run fifth and fourth on day three.

F1 pre-season ‘scared’ Ferrari after realising their deficit to Red Bull

Sainz’s deficit to Verstappen in second place even grew to eight-tenths on day two. The Red Bull driver finished behind Zhou Guanyu by four-hundredths of a second as Alfa Romeo had enjoyed a late glory run. Sergio Perez put Red Bull back on top on day three by three-tenths.

Lap times are pretty meaningless in pre-season as the teams all run separate programs and fuel loads. But ending days two and three eight and seven-tenths of a second off Red Bull’s pace concerned Ferrari. Their concerns would also prove true when the racing then started.

Red Bull dominated Formula 1 in 2023 to win 21 of the 22 Grand Prix with Sainz and Ferrari denying the Milton Keynes team a perfect season. Sainz capitalised on Red Bull struggling to find a suitable set-up to win the Singapore GP. But it was one of his three podiums last year.

Carlos Sainz opens up on the ‘most complicated’ part of the 2023 season

Sainz did not stand on a rostrum until he finished Ferrari’s home Italian GP in third after the 29-year-old started on pole position. He also only sealed third place at the United States GP after the stewards disqualified Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton for excessive wear to their floors.

Leclerc still sealed six podiums in 2023 but did not win a race, despite taking pole five times. His 206 points and Sainz’s 200 were also only enough to get fifth and seventh in the drivers’ table. While Ferrari finished third in the team’s table to Red Bull (860) and Mercedes (409).

Now, Sainz has opened up on how pre-season testing ‘scared’ Ferrari, when asked by AS to name the most complicated part of his 2023 F1 season. The Spaniard has no doubts that it was the Bahrain test as it left his team scratching their heads about their deficit to Red Bull.

“The beginning, without a doubt, the Bahrain test,” he said. “Having seen so soon from the first three runs we did in the tests that the car was complicated and that it gave us scares.

“We didn’t really understand what was happening and what we were missing compared to Red Bull. And then races like Australia and Las Vegas. I have never been as frustrated and angry with the sport as in those two races.”

Sainz finished the Australian GP in P12 after receiving a five-second time penalty which took him out of the points. He was in P4 before the penalty for crashing with Fernando Alonso at the second restart. But that restart effectively did not count when the race, again, resumed.

The Ferrari driver also had no luck at the Las Vegas GP when a water valve cover came free during the opening minutes of first practice. It ruined Sainz’s car and forced the Scuderia to replace his battery, ICE and control electronics, which also brought a 10-place grid penalty.