Ferrari F1 struggles involve private matters and technical secrets

The Spaniard has not been able to get as much out of new ground effect F1-75 as teammate Charles Leclerc, and had another frustrating outing in Spain last week when he dropped down the order with a spin.

Having had a run of incidents in Australia, Imola, and Miami, Sainz is aware that the situation needs to turn around soon so he can deliver better results for his team.

But key to doing that is getting a better handle on how Ferrari’s current car behaves, with him admitting that he is not fully comfortable with how sharp the front end turns in.

Pushed on what specific characteristics of the car he was struggling with, Sainz said the situation was very complicated and could not be fully answered.

“It’s very specific,” he said. “It’s a lot of detail. It is probably just too much to put into an interview, or to put into words, because I think it also deserves some privacy and some team confidential things.

“I think you can see from the cameras and from everywhere that I’m not there yet with the car compared to last year, and I’m not bragging naturally that the car is a bit too pointy for my liking.

“But that’s the way it goes: you can either adapt yourself, or you can bring your car a bit more to your liking.

“These two things, they take time and they take knowledge and experience. It takes mistakes, it takes trial and error. And this is what I am in the process of now.”

Sainz said his performances were also being put in a bad light because of the way that his teammate Leclerc was so on top of the car and regularly challenging for wins.

“He’s driving at a very high level,” he explained. “He’s putting together super impressive lap times, with an aggressive way of driving.

“I can only admire and try in some ways to copy, and in other ways to try to put it a bit more to my…