Carlos Sainz believes progress is being made in his bid to increase his competitiveness in the F1 2022 season. The Ferrari driver has had a frustrating start to the season; despite Ferrari's competitive car he has fallen below the performance levels of teammate Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Max Verstappen. Leclerc has two wins and six pole positions this season, whilst Sainz is yet to achieve either milestone. However, Sainz came agonisingly close to taking his first F1 win at the Canadian GP after pressuring Verstappen in the closing stages of the race. Sainz believes a change of tactic to focus on his own preparation and getting comfortable with the car contributed to an improved race pace versus their Red Bull rivals. "As I said a few races ago I want to take it a bit more race by race, and not thinking too much about the championship or anything like that," Sainz told media, including R acingNews365.com . "I really want to focus on getting to a track and see if I can get myself in a good window of performance and comfort inside the car. "[In Canada] I did that right from FP1, I looked very quick both in quali and race pace."
Sainz aiming to recreate improvements
Despite many predictions of a close battle between the Ferrari drivers this season, Sainz has generally been out-performed by Leclerc. The 27-year-old hasn't been helped by mid-race driving errors at the Australian and Spanish Grands Prix costing him and the team valuable points. Sainz added that a refocus on being able to push the car closer to the limit may have helped his confidence in the car. "In the [Canadian GP] race I was pushing flat out without any fear of losing the car, like I had for example in Barcelona," said Sainz. "There's some good progress being made and we've changed a lot of things on the car to try and make it a bit more to my liking, and they seem to be working. "At the same time, I think I need more circuits. I need different kinds of corners to have a proper feel for that."
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