Carlos Sainz started the 2024 season in third place. The Spanish Ferrari driver topped the podium in Bahrain, fourteen and a half seconds ahead of his teammate.
After the race, Charles Leclerc made no secret of his disappointment with fourth place. The Monegasque said problems with the balance of the brakes made the car uncontrollable.
Carlos Sainz (3rd): “It was a good race, although I didn’t have the best start. I controlled tire wear, which allowed me to run the race at my own pace. On my way to the podium I overtook two or three competitors and then kept up with Red Bull’s pace, which was a pleasant surprise.
This is still not enough to reach the positions we would like to have. But overall a good start to the season.
I felt more comfortable on the hard tires because they overheated less. On the other hand, this train was more difficult to warm up and the front wheels locked up. But once I had the tires in range, I was able to attack.”
Charles Leclerc (4th): “Max started the warm-up lap quite poorly – he had a bad slip, so compared to him my start to the warm-up lap looked better. But at the beginning of the race he and I started the same way and after that I didn’t have any chance to overtake him because of the problems.
In the first ten laps I had to be more careful in turns nine and ten due to problems with the brake balance, which was extremely rearward. This caused the wheels to lock up every lap, which made steering very difficult.
The race was very disappointing. I waited a long time for the first stage because I wanted to show how much progress we had made, but I couldn’t show anything because the braking balance was far from optimal.
It’s a shame because overall the car is what I wanted it to be. We need to analyze what exactly went wrong and ensure that these problems do not occur again. With each round the situation became worse – this explains the large number of errors.
After ten laps the situation stabilized – at least I already knew I had problems and what to expect. But the car still drove terribly.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
