SAINZ MAKES CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC START IN FERRARI RED

OF ALL THE DRIVERS WHO SWITCHED teams over the winter, Carlos Sainz’s performance in Bahrain was probably the most quietly impressive.

He was faster than new Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in FP2 and FP3, and fractionally faster again after the first runs in Q1. That Sainz only just scraped through to Q2 in 15th was more down to the yellow-flag anomalies than any lack of pace on his part. In Q2, Sainz was fastest of all on the medium tyre, pipping Leclerc by a thousandth of a second.

So far, so impressive – but Q3 “didn’t go to plan” for Sainz, who trailed home eighth, well over half a second behind Leclerc, who admitted he was overdriving Ferrari’s improved car before qualifying. Sainz didn’t make a great start to the race either, dropping behind Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and Lance Stroll’s Aston on the first lap. Sainz also bounced off Stroll at Turn 10 after a failed attempt to repass, so was fortunate to avoid damage.

But thereafter Sainz settled into a strong rhythm, recovered some lost ground, pulled an impressive double pass on champions Alonso and Vettel, and finished the race within nine seconds and two places of Leclerc. Sainz’s pace was decent too – about a tenth per lap slower than Leclerc on medium Pirellis, but half a second faster on hards, with a five-lap offset in Sainz’s favour.

Impressive stuff against one of the most highly rated drivers on the current grid. Sainz now needs to work on stringing his whole weekend together.

“Overall, the weekend is stronger than the result feels in race circumstances and qualifying circumstances,” Sainz reflected. “I was a bit on the back foot after the first few laps, probably taking a bit of a cautious approach into my first few laps with Ferrari – we just wanted to make sure I finished this race. Once I managed to clear the two slower cars, the Aston and the Alpine, and I managed to get into clean air, I was actually very happy with the car and could extract pace from the car.”