Sainz took his and Ferrari’s first podium of the season last time in Monaco.
The Spaniard seemed to find his way around his new team faster than most as Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso struggled to keep up with their respective new teams.
He’s no stranger to moving teams as he drove for Toro Rosso, Renault and McLaren between 2015 and 2020.
Before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Sainz explained how his various team changes over the years have opened his eyes to the level of adjustment required in Formula 1.
“Yeah, well, when I switched from Toro Rosso to Renault, I first thought, ‘Well, okay, these two cars are completely different, but maybe this is an isolated incident,’ but then it was the move from Renault to McLaren completely different [cars] again and then McLaren was completely different to Ferrari, ”said Sainz.
“It opens my eyes a bit to see how different everything is from these four different teams and how much you have to adapt in this way. I guess I’ve had some practice being on four different teams in five or six different years has obviously given me that awareness, but I’d say it’s more a detail. I would say when I got to Renault I was instantly up to speed in the first race in Austin.
“But I had the feeling that I was missing the last two tenths from the toys, the diff maps, the engine braking and the last bit of driving style to get the last two tenths out. And the same goes for McLaren and probably Ferrari, and then it’s more … all the setup options you have in the car, how to use them, how to use them depending on the route, and that I ‘ I talk a lot more about mechanics and aerodynamics that you just don’t know what goes with each track, and you probably need years of experience with this car to know that one goes one way or the other, depending on the situation on the racetrack. “
On the subject of matching items
Former McLaren teammate Lando Norris announced that he had been forced to adjust his driving style for this season despite not switching teams.
Sainz had to do the same to be on par with Charles Leclerc.
“But yeah, I don’t know, I just spend time in the factory as you all know trying to understand every single detail of the car, how to drive it,” added Sainz. “Also why Charles is so fast in qualifying, trying to figure out what he’s doing to be so fast and trying to learn from it.
“F1 cars are so complex these days and have so many things that you can actually do in the cockpit as a driver and change the tools, change so many setup tools to play around, that is … they are very complex and you need them the time to set, the dedication to it. But at the same time it is impossible if, as a driver, you don’t have the ability to adapt.
On the subject of matching items
“So I still have to change the style, the driving and the openness that what I did in the McLaren is probably not going to work in the Ferrari, and I have to change a few techniques on my driving side and I have to do that, so it’s complex, it takes more time to explain. “
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