Carlos Sainz has revealed the summer conversations which have been core to Ferrari‘s sudden return to the front of the Formula 1 grid, and his great from since the 2023 season break.
After a mixed first half of 2023, Ferrari have started the second half of the campaign well, with Sainz securing a famous pole position at the Italian Grand Prix before going one better and winning the Singapore Grand Prix.
“I sat down with my engineers in the summer break,” said Sainz to the media. “We said ‘okay, what can we do to start putting the whole weekend together?’
“Clearly, we have a lot of pace, but we are never putting the whole thing together, so let’s see what we can do to improve that and start having consistent performances in the second half.
“Zandvoort was a very good weekend, Monza almost perfect. Here, I feel, was the perfect one. It makes me very happy and proud when you work analyse and have the speed I had this weekend.
“It is always paying off, and now we managed to put everything together and, yeah, very happy for the engineers, the mechanics, the team, everyone.”
At one with Ferrari
Throughout proceedings in Singapore, Sainz kept his cool, but the first threat to his victory came at the first round of pit stops caused by Logan Sargeant‘s crash on Lap 20 which brought out a safety car.
Ferrari double-stacked Sainz and Charles Leclerc, who stated the race on the soft compound, making him a rear gunner for his teammate as he fended off attacks from both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
“I honestly don’t think the team bet on me,” said Sainz. “I think we were trying to do the best possible race for both cars.
“That was coming by Charles keeping a bit of a gap and a bit of a breather in case there was a safety car. So, this weekend, I had a lot of pace.
“I was feeling at one with the car and had everything under control. Those last five laps before the safety car, I managed to extract also a lot of pace out of those medium tyres.
“I don’t know, I just felt comfortable, I felt everything under control, and, of course, when you are the lead car, it’s always going to be easier.”
