Sainz hopes to 'turn it around' with Ferrari at Miami GP

Carlos Sainz reckons that a "normal" F1 race weekend in Miami will help him recoup his feel for a Ferrari car that he struggled to get on top of in Baku.

Last weekend's Sprint format featured just a single practice session, leaving drivers with little track time to perfect their set-ups and leaving teams with no opportunity to intervene on their cars once access to the latter was restricted under parc ferme conditions.

While everyone was in the same boat, Sainz was particularly impacted by the one-off changes, admitting spending most of his weekend in damage limitation mode.

©Ferrari

The Spaniard still managed to clock in fourth at the end of Saturday's mad dash and fifth on Sunday. But the Scuderia charger believes he'll benefit from a return to a traditional weekend schedule in Miami.

"In a way, I find it positive that the next race is coming quickly, because I can get this one behind me," Sainz he said after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"Now, on the other hand, obviously I probably would need a bit more time, but we've turned it around in the past within three or four days, and I expect that we will do the same before Miami.

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"I think I need a bit of a normal weekend to get back a feeling with the car, and if [the feeling] is the same as here, I will have a few sessions to experiment with set-up.

"But I don't expect it to be the same as my very strong weekend in Australia."

©Ferrari

In Baku, Sainz's teammate Charles Leclerc was unable to fend off Red Bull's drivers in race trim, but the Monegasque had the edge over his Aston Martin and Mercedes rivals.

However, Sainz insists Ferrari must eke out more gains on race day – especially over Aston Martin – if it wishes to contend for the runner-up spot in the Constructors' standings.

"I think we still have a lot of work to do in the race when you see how much quicker we were compared to the Astons in qualifying, and the Aston being on the tail of Charles for all the race," he noted.

"It just proves the car still has a fundamental weakness in race pace, so I expect us to keep making small steps in the right direction.

"At least in qualifying, we have unlocked a bit, but points are on Sunday and we will work hard on that."

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