Sainz’s worrying Ferrari admission: ‘We had the sixth fastest car this weekend’

Sainz held onto fifth at Zandvoort on Sunday, resisting late pressure from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

Despite having track position, Sainz was overtaken by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, and more surprisingly, the Alpine of Pierre Gasly, who ultimately finished on the podium.

Overall, it was a poor weekend for Ferrari, with both drivers struggling with the handling of the car.

Charles Leclerc was forced to retire from the race after sustaining significant damage.

“I would say after looking at the Alpine more the sixth fastest car this weekend,” Sainz said.

“But yeah, when you’re going into a race and going into yesterday’s quali that we were just lacking this weekend, and we had to focus in maximising a good result or a decent result and we did that today.

“Even in the last stint when I knew I had one set of inters left to put on for the last seven laps and the tyres were destroyed from yesterday’s quali, I still managed to keep Hamilton behind and bring home a P5 that was honestly not on the cards, I think.”

Even though Sainz hasn’t finished on the podium so far in F1 2023, he sits ahead of his teammate and George Russell in the standings.

Overall, Sainz was pleased with his “well-executed” Dutch GP.

“I know at some point it looked that we even could fight for a podium, but the reality is that when the race was settled, when you look at our pace we were just nowhere in terms of pace,” Sainz said.

“But we managed to execute a really good race, we were fighting the whole race with people that were not in our race, fighting a lot quicker cars than us.

“So we have to be happy and proud of a well-executed P5, [but] obviously not happy with the feeling of the car and how much I struggled out there today.”