Carlos Sainz is a little worried about the brakes and tires on his Ferrari before the first race of the new 2024 Formula 1 season. These were the two biggest construction sites that the Spaniard noticed during training Thursday in Bahrain.
In terms of times, Sainz actually did quite well and finished fourth, four tenths of a second behind Mercedes. Nevertheless, there were a few issues that the Scuderia still had to work on before the first race: “First of all, we have to look at the brakes,” he says.
“We had a lot of problems today with the brakes, the material and the consistency when braking, and that didn’t occur throughout the test drives,” said Sainz. “But for some reason we struggled in FT1 and FT2.”
“We also have to try to get the balance better, especially for the long run, where we seem to be a bit on the aggressive side of the tires. And we have to put together a better long run package,” says the Spaniard.
However, his statements do not necessarily reflect what the data says. Because they show that Ferrari is actually one of the strongest teams when it comes to tire wear.
The long run itself was really underwhelming compared to Red Bull and was on average around half a second slower – although due to a surprisingly low top speed you can assume that Ferrari had still turned down the engine power.
Leclerc with a positive conclusion
Charles Leclerc emphasizes that the long run looked “pretty good”. “The feeling was pretty good and I felt comfortable in the car,” he says. “It’s a much better start than last year, when we came to the first race and didn’t know exactly where the optimal window was for our car.”
“That’s not the case today,” he praises. “We know full well that we are in the right window to perform at our best level with this particular car.”
How high that will be will be seen at the weekend, at least Leclerc didn’t shine with best times on Thursday and only finished ninth, 0.739 seconds behind – but he also felt held up by traffic on his fast lap and also made a mistake.
In general, he draws a good conclusion: “There were no surprises from our side. That’s good, because there are no bad surprises,” he says. “But they aren’t good ones either, the car is just where we expected it to be.”
He doesn’t want to overestimate ninth place: “I made a small mistake on my fast lap, and this tire is only fast for one lap – so that’s it,” said Leclerc. “But now it’s all about tomorrow, where we want to take a step forward.”
Red Bull good – and Mercedes?
When looking at the competition, the Ferrari driver attests that Mercedes in particular has a strong pace, but that comes as a surprise to him. “But we also don’t know how much gasoline they had on board,” he says.
Sainz also has the Silver Arrows on his list: “It’s clear that Mercedes will be in the fight,” says the Spaniard. “Red Bull were significantly stronger on the long run than on one lap, so I expect them to be stronger tomorrow and Saturday.”
For Leclerc, however, Red Bull is a small unknown – but only in one direction: “The only question is how far ahead they will be,” he says. “But with everyone else, I would be surprised if we couldn’t keep up.”
“But in the meantime it’s best if we focus on ourselves, and that’s what we’ve done so far,” said Leclerc. “We’re quite happy with the feeling of the car. Now we’ll wait for tomorrow to see where we stand.”