Carlos Sainz Jnr, McLaren, Red Bull Ring, 2020

Sainz not worried by Ferrari slump ahead of 2021 move

2021 F1 season

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Carlos Sainz Jnr says he isn’t worrying about Ferrari’s downturn in form this year ahead of his move to the team for the 2021 F1 season.

After the first two races McLaren are second in the constructors’ championship, three places ahead of Ferrari. Sainz out-qualified both Ferraris last weekend, lining up a career-best third.

However when asked he made it clear he is not worrying about his future team’s form at the moment.

“Many people are asking me this question like if I am extremely worried or regretting my decision or anything,” he said. “And I feel like this is not a real question to be answered right now.

“I think it is way too early into a season, we all need to be a bit patient.”

Following the postponement of new technical regulations from 2021 to 2022, teams have been told they will only be allowed to make a limited number of changes to their cars for next season. Nonetheless Sainz expects Ferrari will be able to make useful gains with their current chassis.

“I think you’ve clearly seen how much a car can change from one year to another,” he said. “How much Racing Point could change from year to year. How much Ferrari can change from last year to this year.

“The good thing about Formula 1 is that this never stops and I’m not worried about what is happening now because in a year, in 360 days, everything could change. That’s why I’m focussing on the present, focussing on my time in McLaren.

“I said it 100 times in interviews that my main goal this year is to do as best as I can in McLaren and not focus on what is going on in Ferrari. And then as soon as this season is over, I will have time to to go into Ferrari and focus on that and see how we can make next season better on this one.”

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15 comments on “Sainz not worried by Ferrari slump ahead of 2021 move”

  1. It seems Vettel can fiight for 4th in the championship just fine in AM, meanwhile Seinz is boarding a sinking ship.

    Ferrari will be much better eventually, but with engine frezze comming and their engine down on performance, things are not great.

    1. Do you mean fifth?

      1. @rockgod I’d back him to beat Albon.

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      17th July 2020, 14:39

      AM don’t be as fast as Racing Point because there are some fairly significant changes to the 2021 cars – they can’t just paint a 2020 Mercedes pink and go racing. Racing Point were complaining about this recently as it throws their strategy out of the window. The same applies to the year after with the regulation changes where there will be nothing to copy.

  2. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    16th July 2020, 23:55

    I would worry if I was him. Ferrari are known for many things but digging themselves out of a slump quickly isn’t one of them.

  3. Fingers crossed for 2022!

  4. Is this ferrari’s longest slump? Or the one in the 90’s lol 😂… I grew up a huge Schumacher fan… But they had a dream team with him and a set of guys at the top that where not all Italian… Diversity in 🤔 thinking may be there problem at ferrari where they have a team toeing the line and not being to innovative… I think they made a monster of an engine the past couple of seasons…. Strange how the legality was called into question because the competition was scared of the straight line speed… But when certain teams innovate… The British biased f1 media praises their engineering prowess… An very little investigation is done. Ala merc rims that solved their tyre overheating problems

    1. There’s a difference between innovation and cheating… hiding a device after the FIA regulatory fuel flow monitoring device to boost power using cached fuel isn’t legal – or why would there now be 2 of them!!

  5. With the PU freeze this season, I’m sure Ferarri will bin this season off and focus on next year or the year after and hope to hit the ground running with new regulations.

    1. Thing is @geekzilla9000, that engine is more and more frozen for the next few years too. So if Ferrari want’s to cure their biggest issue in time to avoid locking that in for those years, they only have about 4-5 month’s to sort that.

      Even if their 2022 car is a superb chassis, it won’t be winning a lot with a dog of an engine in it.

  6. Yes, Sainz should be worried about the political chicanery from his future teammate.

  7. He’ll be slaughtered by Leclerc regardless.

  8. Thinking it might be a bit like Perez’s move to McLaren in 2013. He thinks he’s got a promotion from the midfield into a ‘top tier’ car, only for it to become a ‘midfield’ car right when he joins. Hopefully for Sainz’s sake he gets more than 1 season and Ferrari are able to get back to the front faster than it’s taken McLaren.

    1. just imagine Ferrari actually doing a Mclaren or even a Williams and showing up with the hands down worst car

  9. MB (@muralibhats)
    17th July 2020, 10:19

    Why ask such questions? What else do you expect him to say? No one who is going to join Ferrari at such critical driver market and also his age is going to reply anything else!

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