Sainz: 'The speed was there from race one, so I was much more relaxed'

Carlos Sainz is happy that that start of his first year at Ferrari has gone well so far. In a completely new environment the Spaniard has immediately showed his skills by keeping up with teammate Charles Leclerc on the whole, and even beating him at times. Sainz is proud of that.

"It was a big challenge at the beginning, with a new team like Ferrari. I arrived with confidence, but you never know how it will go. And I'm quite proud and happy," he says of his first few months with his Italian employer to, among others Motorsport-Total.com. After 10 Grands Prix he has 68 points, good for seventh in the world championship.

Where men like Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez struggled to be competitive straight away, Sainz was different. "The speed was there from race one, so I was much more relaxed. That's why I could work on the other things - build up a weekend completely. In the first weekends it was very difficult, rarely did I get qualifying, race strategy, tyre management and starts combined as I would have liked, but lately it's been going a lot better."

Tyres Ferrari

Ferrari has been struggling with excessive tyre wear in recent GPs, particularly at the front of the SF21. They are working hard to solve the problem. Sainz is proud of the way Ferrari is trying to overcome the tyre problem:"The setback in France was so severe that we were shocked and went back to Maranello immediately. There we worked a lot and spent a lot of time in the simulator to analyse things. It was special to see how many people were working on it and very impressive what all was thought up to solve it," he praises the team.