How Sainz turned his 2023 season around with summer break Ferrari meeting

Sainz has enjoyed a remarkable three races since the summer break, out-qualifying teammate Charles Leclerc 3-0.

At Zandvoort, he over-delivered on a weekend where Ferrari struggled, securing fifth.

A week later at the Italian Grand Prix, he secured pole before taking his first podium of the year after a stout defence against Leclerc.

Then in Singapore, he was incredible throughout the weekend, securing Ferrari’s first win since Austria last year.

“I think in terms of car and driving understanding, I think before the summer break there was this already decent feeling with everything,” Sainz explained.

“I just sat down with my engineers in the summer break and we said okay, what can we do to start putting the whole weekend together, because clearly we have a lot of pace, we were doing some good things but we are never putting the whole thing together, so let’s see what we can do to improve that and start having consistent performances in the second half, because the potential is clearly there this year.

“And yeah, Zandvoort was a very good weekend, Monza was almost perfect and here I feel like it was the perfect one.

“Makes me very happy and proud that when you work, you analyse, and you also have the speed like I’ve had this weekend. It is it is always paying off and now we managed to put everything together and, yeah, very happy for the engineers, for the mechanics, the team, everyone.”

Despite Ferrari enjoying two strong events, Sainz predicts that the team will remain inconsistent in the remaining flyaway races.

“Honestly, I don’t think it [the Singapore win] means much, I think this year, it’s going to be a bit like this [inconsistent],” he added. 

“We’ve had two great weekends in a row, but I think the two tracks that we’ve been to have suited our car. In particularly this one, a high downforce track.”