Sainz: We have more problems with hard tires than with others

After the race in Miami, Carlos Sainz noted that he managed to find an approach to the Medium rubber in the first segment of the distance, allowing him to closely chase Fernando Alonso, but after the pit stop the problems started when a set of hard tires were put on his Ferrari.

Carlos Sainz: “In Miami I got back the usual driving experience and it was more comfortable to drive than in Baku. This means that the Azerbaijani stage turned out to be atypical, perhaps this should be attributed to the number of stage failures this season.

And yet there is nothing to be particularly happy about. In the first part of the race we were fighting for the podium and wanted to be ahead of Fernando Alonso because of the earlier pit stop. On the Medium compound rubber I was able to keep a good pace with the car, but as soon as we switched to hard tyres, I ended up in traffic.

Some dirt stuck to the tires and then the pace dropped a lot – you could say it brought us back to reality. At the distance of the race we are not yet fast enough and if we switch to hard tires we have more problems than our rivals.

But when it comes to Medium tyres, everyone in Miami struggled with them, but maybe this affected me less. During the first stint I was chasing Fernando Alonso, putting pressure on him and even overtaking him, but just then the team called me into the pits. In general, it was on medium hardness tires for some reason that I was able to maintain a fast pace.

I can’t say that dueling with Fernando gives me pleasure, because it’s really me who has to look in the rearview mirrors. Ferrari is usually ahead of Aston Martin in qualifying, but their car is faster in races. Fernando is very competitive in the AMR23, he works better with rubber and I have to defend most of all.”