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Carlos Sainz suffered his third DNF of the season at last weekend's Azerbaijan GP as a result of hydraulic issues with his Ferrari F1-75, which have seemingly not been witnessed in an F1 car in a long time.
When asked to elaborate on the problem in the drivers' press conference ahead of the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix, the Spaniard said:
“It was a bit of a weird, hydraulic failure that we hadn’t seen in the car for many, many years. But a failure that the team believes it’s pretty easy to solve and move on from it. It happened and it happened to me, which is, again, unfortunate, but I’m not worried. The team seem to be pretty calm and confident that it shouldn’t happen again.”
The team issued a statement regarding the same ahead of this weekend's race, stating that a "short-term fix" for the issue has been found and applied. It said:
“Hydraulic components from Carlos’ car have already been examined. A short-term fix is in place for Canada, while work is on-going on mid/long-term solutions.”
Carlos Sainz finished both free practice sessions on Friday in the top three and seems to be having a relatively comfortable weekend so far. The Spaniard is confident in his Ferrari's potential to challenge Red Bull in Canada, although Saturday's qualifying will truly reflect where he stands this weekend.
Carlos Sainz admits he still "gets on well" with teammate Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz is undoubtedly having a difficult time extracting the maximum potential of his Ferrari despite his teammate Charles Leclerc performing at an extremely high level. Despite this, the 27-year-old admitted that the two drivers continue to share the same positive dynamic as they did last season. He said:
“In terms of relationship, everything has been very stable, if anything even better, so all going well so far. He’s a great guy, we have a lot of mutual respect, which helps our working relationship. He’s doing a great job adapting to the new car, the new regs, he’s extracting everything out of this Ferrari that I’m trying to do also, and in certain ways copy. I’m having fun with him, we get on well – and we work in the same direction, which is important.”
He continued:
“He’s driving at a very high level, he’s putting together super-impressive lap times, an impressive way of driving and I can only admire and try and in some ways copy, and in others try and put it a bit more in my liking to be faster. Sometimes it goes like this and as a driver you just need to go through a process and challenge yourself.”
Carlos Sainz currently stands fifth in the drivers standings with a 33-point deficit to his teammate.
