Carlos Sainz thinks bouncing in the high-speed corners is what has derailed Ferrari’s prospects at Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix.
The Spaniard and team-mate Charles Leclerc had hoped to be in the fight for pole position at Barcelona but ended up on the third row as McLaren’s Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen to the top spot, with both Mercedes right behind them.
While Ferrari had hoped a major new upgrade package would deliver a step forward, Sainz thinks that the prospects of the squad were ultimately wrecked by its failure to get on top of high-speed porpoising.
“We've been struggling all weekend with the high-speed corners,” he said. “We still have this phenomenon, bouncing phenomenon, that gives us a very tough time in the high-speed corners.
“Probably this is also killing a bit the tyre for the third sector. I don't know.
“But still the third year of these regulations [and] I'm fighting this porpoising in high-speed corners when you put lateral load in the car. And it's been tough all weekend to try and get rid of it. And still we haven't managed to get rid of it.
“We come to this track, and you can see McLaren and Red Bull with zero bouncing, and I think they're doing a good job.”
Sainz said that Ferrari believed right up until Q2 that it could have a chance of pole position, but its hopes were extinguished when rivals managed to extract more pace from their cars.
“We kind of realise that Red Bull, when they turn it up, and McLaren when they turn it up, they had an edge over us,” he said.
“I’m disappointed because honestly after free practice I thought we had a chance to fight for pole position this weekend. But very quickly in Q2 we realised we were just step too far."
Leclerc, who took fifth place on the grid ahead of Sainz, said that he had not felt comfortable with the Ferrari at any point so far this weekend.
“I've had a very difficult time until quali really, until FP3 I would say,” he said. “FP1 and FP2 were extremely difficult for me. FP1, we had the old package, we had to obviously do the compare between the two cars which was needed.
“In FP2, the car felt really out of place and the balance was really struggling. Today we changed basically, not everything, but a lot of things in the car. In FP3, I felt straight away much more at ease. However, the pace is just not there.
“I'm happy in a way of the progress with the feeling that I've had from yesterday to today, which I think will pay off in the race.
“But I'm not happy and I'm disappointed with the pace of the car today in qualifying because we are further away than what we had anticipated.”
