For his third Formula 1 season as a Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz has set himself the goal of nothing less than the world title. “When you drive for Ferrari and you’re as competitive as I am obviously, the aim for the year has to be to fight and win the world championship,” said the Spaniard on the sidelines of the launch of the SF-23 in Maranello on Tuesday .
“It’s not just on my mind, it’s on the whole team’s mind,” he added. “But in the short term it’s clear that if you want to be world champions you have to be the best driver and the best team and I’m focusing on that short-term aspect.”
After initial difficulties last season, it was only enough for Sainz to finish fifth in the drivers’ standings in 2022. However, he improved a lot in the second half of the season and he worked hard over the winter to be there from the start in 2023.
Sainz: “I feel a lot safer now”
“What can I do? What can the team do to become a better team and to be the best driver on the grid? I have very clear goals in mind. When I went into winter I thought about how to achieve them and I have the feeling that I will do my best,” said Sainz.
“Whatever happens this year, I feel a lot more confident after last year. I feel more capable, better prepared. I now know what it’s like to fight at the top and what I have to do and I feel ready for.”
Especially in the first third of the 2022 season, the Spaniard made untypical driving mistakes that maneuvered him out of the title fight early on, while his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc was able to defend his championship lead in the first races.
Sainz: What he wants to do better in 2023
“There are definitely things I would like to do better,” Sainz is aware. “An example of this is consistency, which was one of my greatest strengths as a driver in previous years. Whatever the reason, I didn’t feel comfortable in the car. I had lost the consistency that I had in my McLaren years and made it so strong in my first year at Ferrari.”
“But there are a lot of other things,” adds the 28-year-old. “The interaction with the team and the mental resilience, the driving style, which I certainly worked on a lot over the winter. The attitude, the approach, certain things that after a few years of which I felt I had a very good the start of my Formula 1 career, I would like to change.”
“But if you want to achieve even more, you have to keep challenging yourself. Of course I won’t make them public and I won’t give details because it’s all very personal as far as the drivers and the team are concerned. But my engineers know them. I’ve been pretty open about it, I’m working on it and we’ll see how it goes.”
Although 2022 didn’t quite go to plan for Sainz, it was still his most successful Formula 1 season. Not only did he achieve his best World Championship result with fifth place and 246 points, but with his first race victory and his first pole position at Silverstone he also reached important milestones on the way up.