Carlos Sainz has admitted that he and his Ferrari team are concerned about their reliability moving forward in the 2023 Formula 1 season after issues came to light in the opening race of the campaign.
The Spaniard finished fourth at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix but only because his teammate, Charles Leclerc, ground to a halt with a battery problem. He had already changed his components after qualifying to use up his second of two allocated battery stores for the year.
Leclerc now faces a 10-place grid penalty for the 2023 Saudi Arabian GP having needed to put a third element into his scarlet red Ferrari for the second race of the year. Sainz couldn’t hide his worry that those issues would create more problems down the line but he remained confident his team could fix the issue.
“We are relatively concerned,” Sainz told the press. “It’s not how you want to start the season with a penalty in race two.
“Having the battery issue, we are clearly not happy with that but it’s the first time we have seen this failure in a very long time so it caught us by surprise but we are capable of fixing that in the short term.”
Under the weather
Sainz was feeling a little worse for wear at the press conference having suffered from a cold in the days leading up to the event.
“I had a cold over the weekend and now I feel totally fine it’s just I don’t know why my voice decided to leave me yesterday morning and it hasn’t come back yet,” Sainz continued.
He was still doing better than championship leader Max Verstappen, though, who did not take part in media duties as a result of a stomach bug delaying his arrival in Jeddah.
