Carlos Sainz suggests he suffered similar brake issue to Charles Leclerc in Bahrain

Carlos Sainz has revealed that like Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, he was forced to manage his brakes in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Sainz proved to be Red Bull’s nearest challenger at the Bahrain International Circuit, finishing within several seconds of Sergio Perez in second.

The Spaniard enjoyed a strong race from fourth on the grid, dispatching Leclerc and then Mercedes’ George Russell on track.

While teammate ran off the track on at least six occasions due to a brake issue, Sainz’s Ferrari appeared to be working perfectly.

However, after the race, Sainz confirmed that the brake performance on his SF-24 was a “limitation” even if it wasn’t as severe as Leclerc’s issue.

“Yes, the first stint and the beginning of the second stint, whenever we were in traffic, we were having a lot of brake vibrations and the pedal at one point started to go long,” he said in the FIA press conference.

“So it was always a balancing act between, do I go for it and try to get rid of the dirty air and overtake people, or do I start saving my brakes because they're going to fail or something's going to happen?

“I started saving by moving a bit on the straight to cool the side that it was getting hotter and the vibration started to get better. And then I could start to make moves and move forward.

“But as I said, the start wasn't great. The brakes were still a bit of a limitation for a bit. And then once everything settled, I could do my pace, do my overtakes and go for the podium.”

Leclerc’s own brake issue was clearly quite severe with the Ferrari driver locking up and running off track on numerous occasions.

The Monegasque had it confirmed by Ferrari there was an astonishing “100-degree split” between the front and rear brakes, resulting in an unusual imbalance.

"It was impossible in the first 15 laps, the issue was getting a lot worse every lap," Leclerc added. "I was obviously basing my braking for Turn 9-10 with the previous lap, which obviously fell too late all the time, but the issue was getting a lot worse.

"Every time I would brake three meters earlier, but I would still look up, then at lap 15 or 20, the issue stabilised. The team told me on the radio that it was more than 100 degrees split between from front right and front left, which is huge.

"At that moment, I understood that the best thing I could do was just to bring the car home to the chequered flag. Honestly all in all, considering that the issue didn't get any better throughout the whole race... we started to be more consistent when the issue didn't worsen and every lap, which was helping me to be more consistent."