Puzzled Ferrari drivers lacking confidence, “cannot push” inconsistent F1 car

After crashing out of qualifying, Leclerc struggled to make progress in Miami and ultimately finished where he started in a subpar seventh, while Sainz fell from third to fifth.

Leclerc stressed that Ferrari “need solutions” to solve the issues both drivers are currently struggling with. 

“On race day we struggle like crazy,” Leclerc said. “The window of our car is so narrow.

“Whenever you get a little out, it has huge consequences on the balance.

“It’s from one corner to another. In one corner you can have huge understeer then huge oversteer.

“This is not ideal to have confidence in the car. Plus, I had a lot of bottoming [in the race.]

“We have a lot of work to do. We need to find something. We need solutions.”

Sainz, who was pictured having an intense discussion with his teammate in parc ferme after Sunday's grand prix, revealed the SF-23’s tyre management weakness leaves the drivers no flexibility to push on their tyres. 

“At the moment, I cannot push,” Sainz explained. 

“Especially in the race, as soon as you push for one lap, you do one good fast lap and then the next lap you are 0.3s slower with the tyres that were just very, very tough.

“It means that we don’t have flexibility to push or not push and we just need to follow a certain pace to make it to the end.

“I am surprised as I thought we would be better but [Miami] showed us that we still have some work to do.”

The Spaniard added: “We went for the undercut and it worked, it is just that with hindsight the car that we have right now, we have very little flexibility to try undercuts or overcuts.

“It is just more about how limited we are. It is tough to accept. It shows that we have a lot of work to do on tyre management and race pace.”