Carlos Sainz says Ferrari's weakness on race day isn't just about tyre degradation, it's also related to a "fundamental problem" hiding under the hood of the Scuderia's SF-23.
In Spain last time out, Sainz qualified on the front row alongside future race winner Max Verstappen.
The Spaniard held his runner-up behind the Red Bull driver during the first 15 laps of the race at the Circuit de Catalunya.
But eventually, the Ferrari's pace's succumbed to its usual deficiency, tyre degradation, which pushed Sainz down to P5 at the checkered flag behind both Mercedes' cars and Sergio Perez Red Bull.
While degradation is the most frequent complaint formulated by Ferrari's drivers after a race weekend, the lack of consistency of the Scuderia's SF-23 is also a major grievance often expressed by Sainz and teammate Charles Leclerc.
"We keep talking a lot about tyres and degradation, but I think there’s also a bit more of a fundamental problem with the race pace rather than just degradation," Sainz explained in Montreal on Thursday.
"Honestly, my analysis or the team analysis is that we just lack race pace at the moment.
"We need to make a car that is kinder on tyres but also more consistent with the aero and allows us to stay a bit more on the limit of the car during the whole race.
"At the moment it just feels like we’re having to back off a bit."
Sainz says that Ferrari's engineers were tirelessly working to solve the SF-23's issues.
"We’re doing our best, every weekend we’re trying different things every week and we have new ideas, we have new bits in the car," he added.
"Every weekend we try something with tyres, if it’s not tyres it’s with the suspension, if it’s not it’s with the aero. So we cannot fault the fact that we’re trying everything and I’m sure we will get to the bottom of it."
©Ferrari
Addressing the Scuderia car's tyre degradation issues, Sainz believes the plight was carried over from last season, but has gradually gotten worse.
"It’s something we started seeing towards the end of last year, when we were still sticking it on pole in Austin, very close to pole in many circuits, even Abu Dhabi at the end of the year – but then we saw that in the race we were clearly behind Red Bull," he noted.
"It’s a carry-over, but maybe an exaggeration this year with the car that we have because at least last year we could still do pole positions and then maybe be a couple of tenths behind. But this year it is a bit more."
Ferrari implemented a significant upgrade package on its car in Barcelona that produced no significant boost in performance. But Sainz believes the Circuit de Catalunya was always going to a tough venue for its contender.
"I felt like we did important steps in our understanding and learning of the car, which we’re going to try and put together here," he said. "And if not, we’ll keep trying, we will keep going. I see a factory full of energy to correct the situation and the feeling.
"Barcelona was probably the worst possible place to bring this package to because it was always going to be our most difficult race of the year so far.
"So it was a bit shocking maybe for everyone and for us too. But if you have new parts you need to bring them and you need to try them and hopefully they will work better here in Canada."
Sainz feels that Montreal's layout will better cater to the current characteristics of Ferrari's machine, especially in terms of slow-speed corners.
"The car has some good traits down there that we are trying to exploit," he said.
"Canada is more on the low-speed side, and so that’s why we were hoping maybe that the new package also is helping. So that’s why we’re trying to stay optimistic."
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