Sainz believes Ferrari reliability issues are ‘bump in the road’

Carlos Sainz has urged his Ferrari team-mates not to be too disheartened by their recent run of reliability issues and reminded them of the big step the team has taken this year.

Having spent years fighting to be the third-best team on the grid, Ferrari propelled themselves back to the top of the table following the mass overhaul in regulations.

At the start of the season, it almost looked as if they would be taking both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships at a canter after Red Bull suffered from early reliability issues.

But, as we approach the midway point of the season, the roles have reversed. Charles Leclerc has retired from two of the three previous races and Sainz joined him in Baku.

However, the Spaniard has urged caution and wanted his team to focus on the step up they had taken from last campaign rather than their recent issues.

“You cannot avoid the fact that we were coming into the season aiming to be competitive again and we managed to exceed even our own expectations by being so competitive,” Sainz told Motorsport.com.

Very tough result. We opened the gap to save tyres but a hydraulic problem hit us in Lap 9 and that was it. Together with Charles issue, it’s a difficult day for our team and fans. We are a very strong team and we’ll recover from this. Long way to go.

https://t.co/VS8aBqQyaS pic.twitter.com/wQnoZoE2XI

— Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) June 12, 2022

“That put us into the Championship fight, but we need to remember it is our first year back. We’ve done a massive step on the engine on power, we’ve done a massive step in understanding these regulations and we are still quite new into getting back into this fight.

“We’re suffering recently with some reliability issues but, for me, it’s fine