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73 laps on Tuesday, 71 today, third absolute time yesterday, behind Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc , and fifth today. This is the balance of the first two days of testing on the Barcelona track for Carlos Sainz jr.
The Spaniard from Ferrari , engaged this morning at the wheel of the F1-75, continued to get acquainted with the new ground-effect single-seater built in Maranello and was busy for most of the day collecting useful data for the technicians to carry out all the checks. of the case.
What has struck the new Ferrari, at least up to now, has been the great reliability shown in these two days. The F1-75 did not suffer from any technical problems and allowed both drivers of the Scuderia to grind kilometers.
“We will have to see how we go when the season starts,” said Sainz when asked for an initial opinion on the new car. “For sure I had a day and a half without any technical problems with the car. We managed to stick to the schedule and it's a good starting point. I am really happy with all the laps that I managed to complete ”.
Carlos then wanted to dedicate a thought to the fans of the Red, eager to understand if the new born can finally allow the team to return to fight for important goals.
“I can tell the fans that they must be happy because the team has created a reliable car. Now they have to be patient and give us time to go looking for performances. Unfortunately for the insiders this session is not very exciting because we are not pushing the cars to the limit, but we are only thinking about accumulating kilometers ”.
The son of art then wanted to underline how with ground-effect single-seaters it really seems easier to follow another car in the wake without suffering an excessive loss of load.
“Yesterday I followed some cars on purpose and I can say that you can already feel the differences. I was positively impressed and I think we are going in the right direction ”.
Sainz then did not hide when he expressed his enthusiasm to be able to direct the work of the engineers on a car made from a white sheet with his inputs.
“This is one of my favorite seasons in Formula 1 both for the new challenge imposed by the technical regulations and for the influence that a driver can give to lead the team in the development of the car. I arrived at Ferrari with a car practically on the verge of development, while this year we start from scratch and I feel I have a good chance to help the team with my feedback ”.
One of the greatest curiosities is to understand how much is the difference that the drivers at the wheel feel compared to the cars driven until last year. Sainz said he appreciated the great speed he manages to bring into the corners.
“Until we push the single-seaters to the limit, we won't know exactly how much the difference is compared to the cars of the previous generation. At the moment, however, I can say that I am beginning to feel the first differences ”.
“Obviously you feel the different downforce and it's really cool because you are attached to the ground and you feel the car is producing downforce. It's a nice feeling behind the wheel and I feel more consistency even in the corners ”.
The word of the day in Barcelona was "Porpoising". The images shared by F1 on its social profiles showed Leclerc's Ferrari which on the main straight suffered from a rebound due to the configuration of its ground-effect single-seaters, and for better or worse all the teams had to deal with this unexpected event.
Sainz explained how the team will have to study this phenomenon because it could be one of the pivotal topics of this season.
“It depends on the set-up you have, whether or not you use the DRS. It's a whole new world and we need to fully understand it because it could be a highlight of this season ”.
I really loved this, made me chuckle. Loving everything Binotto has done, particularly recently. If this car is a winner, I’ll be so happy for him disproving the haters, and of course for the team.
Sainz agrees with you and so do I. Reading into the interviews from Charles (he never usually gives anything away), Sainz & Binotto it seems to me they don't think the car is a world beater but they also don't say where they think they are, so the pecking order and gap to the top are intriguing and still unknownJPBD1990 wrote: ↑26 Feb 2022, 05:54I really loved this, made me chuckle. Loving everything Binotto has done, particularly recently. If this car is a winner, I’ll be so happy for him disproving the haters, and of course for the team.
I am not ‘convinced’ as some others are that it will win or fight for the title. I’ve been there too many times before. But what’s encouraging is a) reliability, b) news of good driveability, and c) confirmation that they have been testing and not pushing for times despite always looking competitive. We live in hope, but at least for me, I don’t have high expectations or feelings of entitlement. Only time will tell.
I see what you're saying, but what Binotto said applies to everyone, it's not like Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren were running on fumes and full power either, and they also are still learning their cars. Either way I'm not too bothered about the lack of big updates, I just hope they come later in the season and not neverdialtone wrote: ↑26 Feb 2022, 10:23The point is that the car has a lot more performance in it to exploit and bringing updates won't necessarily help them get ready for the first race because drivers need to get used to the behavior of the car, and so do engineers and mechanics. Cutting off the part where Binotto is saying that car is going well and they don't expect correlation issues and so on, to focus on them not bringing new parts, when they already have the most radical package of the field, imho is misleading, it makes it seem like he instead said: "we've run out of ideas with what to do with the car, hopefully it goes well for us".
I'm not concerned either, I'm also on the side of tempering expectations. All I know performance wise so far is Sainz saying Ferrari's data doesn't show them to be the fastest car here like the media and Mercedes claim, but he doesn't say who is