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Carlos Sainz is set to take a five-place grid penalty at the Brazilian GP on Sunday for fitting a sixth ICE unit on his car.
The Spaniard has not had the best of runs in the last few races that have seen him DNF in two of them and secure a P5 in the third. The Mexican GP did raise a few doubts over how Ferrari might be able to perform in Brazil, but those were alleviated by Carlos Sainz.
Talking to the media, Sainz said that Ferrari are expecting to be back on pace in Brazil, and what happened in Mexico was a one-off. He said:
“We've never been so far off the pace in the dry all year, so I think it's quite clear that we didn't get it right in Mexico. It doesn't matter if it was the engine, the car balance, tyres, whatever - there was clearly something that wasn’t working. And now we focus on Brazil and Abu Dhabi, [the] important last two races before the end of the season where we want to get the pace back."
He added:
“We want to get back to fight on the podium with Red Bull and Mercedes. I think it's a very interesting fight up front and keep having smooth weekends where I can learn from the car and prepare for next year.”
The five-place grid penalty means the Spaniard will, in all likelihood, start behind the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Carlos Sainz are behind both in the championship.
It's been a challenging year - Carlos Sainz
Looking back at the 2022 season, Carlos Sainz said that the season has been a bit of a struggle. He said:
"Yeah, it's been a challenging one, as you guys have seen from the outside. There was a challenging first third of the season where I struggled a bit with the car balance with the driving style, a car that for some reason didn't suit me straight out of the box and I had to fight through it quite a lot. And the second two-thirds I have been a lot happier with the car."
He added:
"I've been a lot more on the pace, but unfortunately, a lot of DNFs, a lot of reliability issues along the way. On top of that, it looks like Mercedes and Red Bull did have a better second half of the season. And it means that even though I'm up to speed with a car and I'm driving well, and I had a solid weekend, for example, in Mexico, the maximum I could get was a P5 five, no? So, a bit unfortunate in that regard."
The Spaniard will hope to make the most of the last two races of the season.
