Sainz frustrated by nagging clutch issue in Brazil

Carlos Sainz rued a costly clutch issue on his Ferrari that undermined his starts all weekend in Brazil.

After setting the fastest time in free practice on Friday, Sainz clocked in a lacklustre P8 in qualifying – well behind his teammate Charles Leclerc who secured a spot on the front row for Sunday’s event.

Sainz’s performance was equally muted on Saturday, the Spaniard also concluding his Sprint race in eighth position.

From seventh on the grid at the start of the Grand Prix proper, the Scuderia charger suffered a poor getaway that allowed Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to gain an upper hand over the Ferrari.

In the wake of the race’s neutralization following the start-line crash between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen, Sainz immediately complained over the radio to his Ferrari pit crew about his recalcitrant clutch.

“What’s wrong with the start?” he bemoaned. “I just hope we bin this clutch, as soon as we’re back in Maranello,” he added.

• Read also: Leclerc beaten down Brazilian fail but ‘I need to move on’

After the race, which he finished sixth, Sainz elaborated on his clutch issues.

“The starts were not good due to a clutch problem that we also had yesterday and we lost some positions there,” he said.

“So I’m very disappointed because it obviously cost us probably some points. We had a problem since the beginning of practice.

“We haven’t been able to really tune it and adapt it to the track and we’ve been struggling a lot with the getaways and yeah it’s a shame.”

While Sainz hoped that his clutch issue in Brazil was a one-off, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said that the team must first understand what had exactly gone wrong.

“On the first start he had a false start, we need to understand exactly what’s happened on the first one,” the Frenchman said.

Sainz also complained about another technical problem – albeit a minor one – involving a paddle shift on the ferrari’s steering wheel.

“Yeah we had a sticky paddle shift problem, we’ve had it before, but it was not a big reliability issue,” he said.

Sainz’s aching complications came on top of Charles Leclerc’s dramatic electronics failure that shut his car down on the formation lap, a massive setback that significantly curtailed Ferrari’s points haul in Brazil.

“It’s a shame because I think with Charles in the race it would have been a great opportunity to take away points from Mercedes this weekend,” reasoned Sainz.

“But yeah, also the car pace wasn’t great either. So Aston, McLaren and Red Bull were a bit in front and we couldn’t really fight them much.

“So yeah, a missed opportunity I think.”

Although Ferrari outscored Mercedes overall in Brazil, by just two points, the Italian outfit is still 20 points behind its Mercedes rival in F1’s Constructors’ standings with two races to go.

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