Sainz “cautious” about the Ferrari F1’s chances at the Portuguese GP despite the positive Friday | F1

Sainz surpassed Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in second practice by almost 0.2 seconds and finished the day fourth-fastest overall.

Sainz thought about the whole day and found it “very positive” as he continued to adapt to the Ferrari SF21.

“Very positive day for me,” said Sainz. We’re keeping the learning curve, we’re keeping the varied track conditions today and probably the lowest grip of the season; Bahrain and especially Imola were very handy; Today it was really slippery.

“And it’s another experience in my pocket just to see how the Ferrari feels in very poor grip conditions, very gusty. And just go through my processes and have a decent day.

Unlike championship contenders Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, Sainz said he enjoyed the low-grip conditions, citing his memorable start from last year when he took the lead on the first lap.

“I like low-grip conditions,” added Sainz. “It’s always something that I think is in my nature and I like the effort of having to find support in places where there is none, but at the same time we saw in Imola that we did it on Friday tend a bit stronger than maybe on Saturday, Sunday.

On the subject of matching items

“Is it because of the fuel or the engine, I’m not sure, then we’ll see other teams take bigger steps on Saturday so I’ll keep it on the cautious side and see how it goes tomorrow.”

Leclerc also enjoyed the low-grip conditions, but admitted he still needs to improve his race pace after struggling with the longer runs in FP2.

“Very, very difficult to drive the car, but I have fun in these conditions,” said Leclerc. “It was very tricky, maybe too tricky in FP2 to have fun with the wind, especially there were quite a lot of gusts all over the track, so difficult to stay on the track, but otherwise it was a good day.

On the subject of matching items

“We ran all the programs we wanted to do and it looks like we’re pretty competitive for now. So we have to keep applying the pressure.

“The short editions were positive today. long runs looked pretty good too. A little less on my side so I have to work on it a little. I think that’s the main weakness for me today, but the other car with Carlos looked good so I just need to fix it a little and it should be better tomorrow. “