Sainz says poor start thwarted Hungarian GP podium chance

Carlos Sainz says his poor launch off the grid in last Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix squandered from the outset his chances of a podium finish in Budapest.

Sainz had qualified fourth in Saturday’s tricky session, two spots ahead of his Scuderia teammate Charles Leclerc.

But a laborious start immediately dropped the Spaniard behind his teammate and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. While he was able to quickly overhaul his countryman, Sainz could not regain an upper hand over Leclerc.

The outgoing Scuderia charger admitted that his botched start – a rare occurrence for Sainz – had been the turning point of his race.

“Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately [it was my] first bad start of the season and at a place that is very costly,” he admitted.

“We need to analyse whether it was my mistake on the procedure, or we just simply got it wrong with the clutch settings and we triggered too much wheelspin for the grip that there was out there today.

“We’ll do a good analysis, one bad start per season is okay – it’s unfortunate that it happened here in Hungary.”

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Looking at the bigger picture, Sainz believes a strong start could have placed him in podium contention, especially considering Max Verstappen's struggles later in the race.

“You’re pretty much fixed on your position after there [from the start],” he said. “That’s why we would have made it P4 after Turn 1, I think P4 was on the cards today or P3 even with Max’s troubled race.

“So a shame because I felt good in the car all weekend, it is true that today it was a bit trickier with the balance and in high fuel, but the pace on the last stint was a bit better and I could catch everyone back up, but it was a bit too late.”

Ferrari introduced in Hungary a modified floor on its SF-24, hoping to mitigate the bouncing issues experienced by its drivers since the team’s Spanish Grand Prix upgrade.

But chasing from behind after losing out at the start and managing tyre degradation limited his feedback on his car’s potential.

“It seemed okay,” he said. “Honestly, difficult to judge from my side, because I was always playing catch up.

“Especially in the first two stints I had to overtake cars at the beginning of my stints, which always compromises the tyre deg.

“Having to go on the marbles and use the tyre at the beginning of the stints, to use the peak of the tyre, rather than nursing it in, and then being fast in the second half of the stint.

“The only positive was the third stint, quite quick with that medium, and then it degraded a bit too much at the end, which didn’t allow me to pass Max and Charles there at the end.”

Looking ahead to next weekend’s round of racing at Spa, Sainz is anticipating a challenging race for Ferrari based on its recent history at the Ardennes track.

“Always been one of our toughest tracks as a team,” he admitted. “I think we’ve always struggled there in the last two years.

“At the same time, I feel like you never know our low downforce rear wing might work a bit better this year, and we might be a bit more performing.

“So obviously, always optimistic, at the same time realistic.”

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