Carlos Sainz experienced one of his most difficult days in Formula 1 on Thursday in Jeddah. The Spaniard was struggling with stomach problems, which had caused him to miss the media day in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Although Sainz was at the track today and drove a total of 50 laps, he didn’t feel particularly good. “The last 24 hours have been pretty tough. I’m glad I got through Thursday and got through the program,” he said.
This became a real challenge for him: “That was one of my hardest days in a Formula 1 car, with such high G forces and stomach problems,” said Sainz. “It’s not ideal, but hopefully it’ll be better tomorrow and then at 100 percent on Saturday. But now I have to recover first.”
The long runs in particular became a problem for the Ferrari driver because he had to drive many laps in a row, “and your stomach doesn’t like that at all,” as he says.
Sainz hopes that he will feel a little better tomorrow. “One step better than today should be enough,” he says. “Of course the main focus is on the race, because tomorrow we’ll only be doing individual laps. More than 50 laps on a track like this is really demanding, so I hope I can fully recover.”
In general, he is satisfied with his working day. Sainz finished seventh, 0.628 seconds behind, and feels he was at least able to get a feel for the car, even if he couldn’t push it to the absolute limit. “This will give me a proper basis to work with tomorrow.”
In the long run on Wednesday, Ferrari was still a long way short of Max Verstappen: the Reds were on average almost half a second slower than the World Cup leader, who should be the big favorite again on Saturday.
Sainz also recognized that Red Bull is strong again in Jeddah. “Aston also seems to have made a good step, and with Mercedes it’s tight again, and also McLaren. Five teams are very close together,” he says.
It will be important to get the lap together in qualifying because that is always difficult in Jeddah. “You always get a strange feeling, especially on the soft tires,” said Sainz. “I hope we can be at the top of the five teams.”
“And Saturday will be a new day again because my long runs weren’t ideal today.”