Carlos Sainz has come to the defense of his teammate Charles Leclerc, as there are murmurs within Formula 1 about whether Ferrari may have chosen to replace the wrong driver for the 2025 season.
It's Sainz, not Leclerc, who will be making way for Lewis Hamilton next year at the Maranello-based team. Despite this, Leclerc currently seems less impressive than both his teammate and Hamilton.
"We've had four really difficult races," Leclerc mentioned in Hungary, after a practice crash and qualifying behind Sainz by a slight margin.
Fortunately for Ferrari, a modified floor at the Hungaroring has seemingly addressed the recent issue of 'bouncing.' However, the downside is that both McLarens and Max Verstappen's Red Bulls have been quicker.
"They're three or four tenths faster than us and that's what we've been seeing for the last four weekends," Sainz observed.
Leclerc has encountered a series of disappointing results, which he attributes not solely to his own efforts.
"It's true that we went in very extreme directions in terms of setup to try to resolve our problems," he admitted. "I probably took a few too many risks in terms of settings to find a solution."
While Sainz is currently outperforming Leclerc by a small margin, he doesn't hold any resentment or boast about it. "It's always the same with Charles," he shared with Spanish journalists on Saturday.
"There are races where he is in front and I accept it with dignity because I know he is a very fast driver. I also have my races where I go fast and now I have been driving at a very good level for a few years now," Sainz expressed.
"The good thing is that we're always a tenth or two off each other - it never happens that we're four or five tenths off. And I think that makes us a strong pair of drivers."
Sainz regrets that Ferrari's pace in catching up with leaders like McLaren and Red Bull isn't likely to improve significantly between Hungary and Spa-Francorchamps.
"This is a bit of what we have until we bring a good evolution, like McLaren and Red Bull did," he stated.
"They're pushing hard at the factory and helping us in every way possible to make the car those three or four tenths faster than we need right now. But it takes time," Sainz concluded. "Obviously, right now, after what we discovered in Barcelona, we have to go back, analyze, change things, there are limited hours in the wind tunnel - it takes time to design new parts."
