Sainz reveals Ferrari tyre wear was “two times” worse than F1 rivals

Ferrari failed to score a single point at the Paul Ricard Circuit as it surrendered third in the constructors’ championship to McLaren.

Having started in fifth, Sainz dropped behind both McLarens on-track after the pit stop phase before being overtaken by Fernando Alonso and both Aston Martins to finish 11th.

“It's quite clear, quite evident that today we must have got something really wrong to be so far off the pace,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1. “It's a limitation that has appeared in some of the races where we really struggled with the front tyres with graining, with degradation, two times as much as our competitors.

“Cars that yesterday we were half a second quicker, like the McLarens, or three tenths quicker. I don't remember. Today, towards the end of the race, they were two seconds faster per lap. So it's clear that we have a limitation with tyres, with the way we operate the tyres. It is something that we will need to analyse, something we need to try and get better through the season.”

It’s not the first time in 2021 Ferrari has struggled with its tyres and Sainz says he noticed a similar issue in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

“It’s something to be honest I felt immediately when I jumped the car in Bahrain and I felt something was not quite right there,” Sainz added. “Now, it’s time to get our heads down and work around it as it’s clearly limiting us on race day.”

Leclerc also endured a tricky race after switching to a two-stop strategy, ultimately finishing 16th overall.

The Monegasque driver described it as ‘one of his most difficult races’.

“It's been one of the most difficult races of my time in Formula 1,” Leclerc explained. “I've been just struggling massively. I think both of the cars were struggling massively. We had like five, six laps on the tyres where we were quite good, and we were competitive, and then even though we were trying to take care of the tyres, they were degrading so much.

“On my side, we tried a second stop towards the end. We knew that we will be out of points anyway, so we just went for another stop. But then obviously it was quite tricky because we were with blue flags and things like this. It was just a very bad race for us. So we need to understand.”