F1 News: Carlos Sainz Blames Cost Cap For Ferrari 2023 Performance Woes

Carlos Sainz has highlighted the challenges Ferrari has faced so far in the 2023 Formula 1 season, particularly attributing their car's aerodynamic issues to the imposed budget cap that has stopped the team from developing further. With Red Bull's clear dominance and Ferrari's fluctuating performance, the Scuderia is yet to secure a single race win.

Red Bull's Dominance and Ferrari's Struggle

Contrasting Ferrari's struggles, Red Bull has secured a firm grip over the competition, consistently claiming wins thanks to their drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Ferrari finds itself in a competitive melee, often trading places with other contending teams behind the clear leaders such as Mercedes, Aston Martin, and McLaren.

“It’s been obviously relatively a frustrating start when we kind of realised that Red Bull was such a big step ahead of us and it was going to be difficult to challenge them," Sainz told the press.

During the first half of the season, Ferrari's performance showed significant variability. This unpredictability led Sainz to comment on the team's necessity of optimising their current setup.

“I think we all expected the car to be more competitive, ourselves to be more competitive and the field has got really, really tight and now you’re going through these massive up and downs where some weekends you might be fighting for P3 and others you’re just finishing P8, which in performance swing just might mean you are 0.1s in front missing or 0.1s behind that tight field, which is not a lot.

“But the end result looks very, very different in Ferrari when you come back with a P3 or P8. And now we just need to kind of accept that, that’s the fight that we are in.

“If one weekend we need to go and fight for P5 and that’s the maximum we can do, we need to celebrate the fact that we’ve done the maximum with what we have this year.

“Focus more on maximising the car’s potential, the team’s performance in this second half of the season. We want to make sure we maximise our constructor points and stop kind of expecting a win or a podium here and just focusing in nailing the principles and be consistent.”

The tight competition sees teams oscillating between strong podium finishes and less stellar performances. The slight difference of just 0.1s can drastically alter the final standings thanks to the incredibly, never-before-seen closeness of the current competition.

Accepting the Current Reality

Several concerns has arisen from the inconsistency of Ferrari's current SF23. Issues from lap-to-lap have been a frequent headache for both Ferrari drivers and inconsistency within the setup each weekend has failed to secure Sainz and his teammate Charles Leclerc with confidence in the car.

For one, wind sensitivity is a significant issue, but due to the budget cap, they haven't been able to pour money into fixing the issue. Instead, they're forced to let be or innovate.

For now, the team is waiting until next year to fix this issue.

"The direction and the idea is very clear and everyone’s heading in Ferrari and now we are pushing flat out back in the factory to change that,” he continued. “It’s just that during a year, it is quite tricky, especially in [the] budget era.

"It’s quite tricky to suddenly change everything, but the direction has been given and we are now back in the factory, in the simulator, developing that car and trying to make amends, [to not] do what we did this year.

“I’m confident that is going to be better. But I’m pretty sure everyone is also going to make a pretty big step next year again. So we just need to focus on ourselves.”

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