Sainz bemoans 'not good enough' abandoned Ferrari upgrade

Carlos Sainz has hit out at the doomed update package Ferrari introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix before binning it two rounds later.

Bolted onto the car at the start of the European triple-header, Sainz and team-mate Charles Leclerc struggled for outright - and anticipated - pace at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The Scuderia had hoped the developments would help in its fight against Red Bull and McLaren. However, Ferrari found itself falling further back and behind Mercedes, which has reduced the performance gap in recent rounds with its own raft of updates.

Fifth and sixth-place in Spain was followed up with fifth and seventh-position in the sprint at the Red Bull Ring, before Sainz clinched a podium in the Austrian Grand Prix itself, but team-mate Leclerc could only limp home P11.

Whilst the result in themselves were not dreadful, Ferrari and its drivers had seen enough and opted to return the SF-24 to its Emilia Romagna Grand Prix configuration, from May.

"It's clearly not good enough," Sainz told media including RacingNews365 at the British Grand Prix. "We are basically the same car as in Imola. 

"Since Imola, everyone has upgraded and they probably added a few tenths [of-a-second] to the car while we had to revert [back to the Imola specification]."

Rivals 'a good step ahead' of Ferrari

The three-times grand prix winner explained the extent of the lost development time, with his team now having to re-trace its steps to understand how and why its latest upgrade failed to have the desired impact.

"We've lost two or three months there of performance gain in the wind tunnel and performance that we could have added in these three months," the 29-year-old said.

Like the Austrian Grand Prix, the round at Silverstone saw Sainz enjoy a stronger weekend than Leclerc, who was knocked out in Q2 during Saturday's grid-setting session.

Whilst the Spaniard pushed eventual-second-place finisher at times during the race, he had to settle for another fifth place. His team-mate, meanwhile, had made good initial progress, but an incorrect call for intermediate tyres ruined his afternoon - he finished P14.

"I feel like today was at least a back to basics approach, back to a car that we know was okay in Imola and we just need to upgrade it from here," Sainz contended, before addressing the situation Ferrari is now faced with: "Unfortunately, our rivals, its clear that they are a good step ahead of us."