Why Carlos Sainz was exposed against Charles Leclerc at the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP

F1 pundit Scott Mitchell-Malm mentioned that Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz was exposed by his teammate Charles Leclerc's incredible performance at the F1 Azerbaijan GP.

The Spanish driver was never really on the same level of performance as his teammate throughout the entire weekend. In both qualifying sessions, Sainz was almost half a second behind Leclerc's pole position time and did not finish higher than P5 in both Sprint and the main race, getting overtaken by Fernando Alonso and George Russell.

While appearing on The Race podcast, Mitchell-Malm said:

"I fear that this weekend actually kind of exposed Carlos to himself that he has that weakness with this car that Mark was talking about. I did an interview with him on Thursday and he talked about being in a better place than 12 months ago in terms of his understanding of the car and what it needs."

Mitchell-Malm added:

"He feels that he does get what it needs so therefore he is in a better place to do it. He described it as a tricky car to drive. So he understands it but he's not comfortable to drive and I think on the more conventional tracks where you have that leeway, I suspect that Sainz can get close to that level."

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"We are still not quite there in terms of race pace" – Charles Leclerc

While analyzing his P3 finish, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc acknowledged that the car is still not anywhere close to Red Bull's race pace.

As per F1.com, Charles Leclerc said:

"We are still not quite there in terms of race pace and we know that’s what we have to work on the most at the moment. We maximized every session throughout the weekend and couldn't have done anything differently, so that’s something to be happy about and the team did a great job. The bottom line is that we have to focus on race pace and tire management and push to make even more progress in the coming races."

While his teammate Carlos Sainz added:

"This has been a very difficult weekend. P5 brought home some points but I must put my hand up and admit I lacked confidence under braking and the pace was not there. On the Medium tyre, I could push a bit more, but with the harder compound, I simply didn’t feel the car. Now I look forward to a reset, as Miami is just around the corner and I can’t wait to jump in the car again and keep pushing."

It will be interesting to see if the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are anywhere close to the Red Bulls in Miami this weekend.