Sainz pinpoints 'number one priority' for Ferrari after F1 slump

Carlos Sainz has identified Ferrari's "number one priority" as it seeks to learn where its Spanish Grand Prix upgrade went wrong.

The new parts introduced in Barcelona did not have the desired effect on the SF-24, with porpoising being suffered by Sainz and Charles Leclerc, with Ferrari also losing ground to immediate rivals McLaren and Mercedes in the Red Bull pursuit.

Since the upgrade was introduced, Ferrari has scored just one podium - through Sainz in Austria, although he benefited from the Max Verstappen-Lando Norris tangle or fifth-place was his likely finish.

Ferrari spent practice for the British GP at Silverstone back-to-back testing the car to try and understand the upgrade further, with Sainz believing this understanding to be critical as the team looks to arrest the slide in performance.

"For sure, with the new package, there is still the potential to be optimised, but i the short-term, we need to understand whether we made a step in the right direction or not" Sainz told media including RacingNews365. 

"That will help future development and it is the number one priority for the team. 

"We have to accept and realise that since Barcelona, we seem to be less competitive and this raises our concerns to the package.

"We need to try and understand as much as possible everything involved in it, and do we want to do the [back-to-back testing exercise at Silverstone?], no.

"But at the same time, the others are not standing still, they're progressing exponentially so we're trying to keep up."

Struggling with upgrades

Although teams have been able to find huge chunks of performance by adding upgrades, McLaren being the prime example, some have struggled to add it during the current rules cycle. 

Sainz also believes that simply adding more downforce to a car is not necessarily the correct way to boost performance.

"100% it is more difficult for teams, it is already super-difficult for.a driver to understand how to extract performance out of [upgrades]," he added.

"In some corners, you feel like you can push it, but in others, you really need to control your driving style and be very disciplined in how you drive the car to find lap time.

"It is a recent thing and it is not as clear as adding five or 10 points of downforce and the car is quicker, because that sometimes creates problems elsewhere.

"So it is a very challenging set of regulations and I think everyone at one point or another has struggled with those upgrades."