Ferrari is increasingly being viewed as a strong contender to clinch a win at their home Italian Grand Prix in Monza this weekend.
While McLaren, rather than Red Bull, currently leads the Formula 1 pack, both Mercedes and Ferrari have also secured wins this season.
Carlos Sainz, who will be leaving the Maranello-based team at the conclusion of the season, believes the inconsistency among the top teams this year has been notable.
"McLaren seem to be the team to beat and the rest of us are having problems, whether it's in qualifying or in some of our developments," said the Spanish driver.
"Red Bull doesn't seem to have improved much during the season, Mercedes has some very good races and others not so much. I don't think any team on the grid has quite understood these cars," Sainz added.
Ferrari's 2024 car didn't perform well in qualifying at the Dutch GP but showed significantly better speed during the race itself.
"We do so many interviews with you guys," Sainz told journalists, "you ask us for an evaluation of the weekend after qualifying and when we're one second from pole, it's a complete disaster. Then it seems that Ferrari is incredible in the race and we are going to be able to win at Monza."
"We have to find a middle balance between one and the other, and I think the only certainty is that McLaren is better," Sainz commented.
Fellow Spanish driver Fernando Alonso, who competes for Aston Martin, told Spanish media after the Dutch GP that "for the next two races, Ferrari should be the car to beat, because of what we saw last year."
"So I think they (Ferrari) will be the favourites. Certainly, we would love to have this problem," Alonso said in response to Sainz's remarks about team inconsistency at the very top of the grid.
Ferrari is also set to introduce a significant upgrade to their car at Monza this weekend, amidst the longstanding belief that the home team always seems to have more engine power for their local event.
"The engine thing is a myth," Sainz asserted with a smile.
"What happens is that Ferrari tends to make a more efficient car for Monza, which we are good at. That seems to make the engine go faster. Then, if we make some car improvement, which I hope we will have, it might give us a step forward, but honestly the improvements we bring now are quite small," Sainz remarked.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur was questioned about Alonso's assertion that Ferrari would be the favourite at Monza. "I don't need anyone to tell me whether we are the favourites or not," he stated. "Our approach will be the same, but I do hope that we will be in better shape in the next two or three rounds."
"The fact that we are better in the short corners will help us," the French team boss added, "but we were very far away at Zandvoort, so I would never go to Monza, Baku, or anywhere else thinking it will be a walk in the park."
"But if we manage to make a jump of one or two tenths, everything will change. Then again, after three races, everyone was convinced that Max (Verstappen) would be champion by mid-season. Then we won a few races, then Mercedes and now McLaren. I hope it will soon be Ferrari's turn again," Vasseur said.
Many analysts suggest that while McLaren has a realistic shot at challenging Red Bull for the constructors' title this season, the 70-point gap between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris will be a tougher challenge to overcome.
"It's clear that if Max continues to finish second or third, I think it's enough for him to win, because McLaren will also fail at some point," Sainz observed.
"But it is also true that if Max starts to fail, things could get difficult. And we all know that, as has been shown many times, as soon as someone is put under pressure, they start to fail," Sainz concluded.
