Carlos Sainz Jr. says Scuderia Ferrari were out-developed by both Oracle Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team during the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, which meant they ended the year without a race win in the final eleven races.
Ferrari started the year well with Charles Leclerc winning two of the opening three races in Bahrain and Australia, but they would only taste victory twice more during the season, although one of those was Sainz’s maiden win in the British Grand Prix.
Sainz believes their rivals got the upper hand in the second half of the campaign, with Red Bull running away with the Constructors’ Championship and Mercedes coming close to overhauling Ferrari in the closing races, which included their one and only victory of the year in Brazil.
Red Bull scored more than two hundred points more than Ferrari in 2022, while Mercedes ended thirty-nine points behind them in third, with Sainz hoping 2023 will see a much better campaign, not just for the team but also for himself.
“We didn’t get a win [in the last few races] that was the target but I think, very simply, we got out-developed by Red Bull and Mercedes in the second half which made our second half of the season relatively weaker than the first half,” Sainz is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com.
“I think we know why as a team. We’re trying to put in place measures for next year to improve our development rate but also whenever we had our chances of winning, we were maybe not the strongest team at executing races. We know these are the main two targets for next season.
“On my side, I want to start the season a lot stronger, a bit more like I finished this one.
“Being a better driver with more knowledge and again with a lot more knowledge of this generation of cars, that should make me stronger next season.”
