Sainz critical of himself and Ferrari after Aus DNF

Carlos Sainz admitted to his shortcomings at the Australian Grand Prix, but says Ferrari must do the same as well.

The Spaniard endured quite the nightmare weekend as Formula 1 made its return to Albert Park, starting the race P9 after red flags following Fernando Alonso’s crash and an issue with the car starter, leading to unprepared tyres and meaning he qualified only P9.

And starting the race on the hard tyre, Sainz dropped out of the top 10 during the opening two laps, falling as low as P14 before going too deep at Turn 9, sliding over the grass and beaching his Ferrari in the gravel at Turn 10, making it a short, but certainly not sweet Sunday afternoon.

Sainz went on to reveal that he had a steering wheel issue before the start, confirmed by team boss Mattia Binotto, which led to anti-stall and switch problems with the second wheel not correctly prepared.

So, on a weekend where Charles Leclerc won comfortably in the other Ferrari, Sainz believes both himself and the team must share the blame for his horror show.

Difficult to digest. Had to change the steering wheel before the start and the new one also had an issue, so the anti-stall was triggered. Trying to recover I made a mistake and that was it. Congrats to the team and to Charles. On to Imola.

https://t.co/ReLBPtxsFP pic.twitter.com/oLOj7jw3fC

— Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) April 10, 2022

“We had similar problems with the switches in the car as yesterday,” Sainz told The Race regarding his pre-race problems.

“Some switches not working. We had to change the steering wheel one minute before the start which meant the second steering wheel wasn’t well configured for the start, and I had the wrong start map setting which was giving me anti-stall in both starts,