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Carlos Sainz feels there aren't any drastic changes that need to be made at Ferrari to provide better competition at the front of the grid.
The 2022 F1 season started with Ferrari as the frontrunner. The team was able to win two of the first three races with Sainz's teammate, Charles Leclerc. The Scuderia then seemed to be the runaway favorite for the title.
The season, however, unraveled from that point onwards as Carlos Sainz's team struggled from reliability issues with the car and some baffling decision-making over the season. For instance, Charles Leclerc was comfortably leading the race in Monaco but the strategic decisions went against him. In Barcelona, a comfortable race lead evaporated when Leclerc's power unit cried enough and ended his race abruptly.
The season featured multiple such instances that led to a sluggish title challenge as Max Verstappen and Red Bull seized the initiative and won the titles. When asked by Sky Sports what he felt were the areas where Ferrari needed to work on, Carlos Sainz stressed the importance of better execution of a race. He said:
"I think it's very simple. I think we need to be better at executing races, whether that's the start like, for example, me. This year, we've had a problem with an inherent problem in the car that doesn't allow us to start well. I had a problem in the clutch all weekend [in Abu Dhabi] and it cost me a position to Lewis [Hamilton], which meant then I had five seconds, six seconds of race time that I lost in that crazy fight I had with him."
Carlos Sainz advises Ferrari: We need to develop more than Red Bull and Mercedes
Explaining further, the Spaniard said that other than race execution, the area that Ferrari needed to work on was having the right strategy and the ability to out-develop teams like Red Bull and Mercedes. He said:
"The second point is obviously strategy, and getting the right goals and the right tyres [onto] the car on Sunday. This is something that we're working on for next year, and then there's the development. If we want to beat Mercedes and Red Bull, we need to develop more than them."
Ferrari has shown remarkable progress compared to where it was in the last two seasons. The team, however, needs to take another step to put together a sustained challenge for the title.
