Ferrari's Carlos Sainz says he will be very hard on himself in response to the driving error that took him out of contention in the early stages of the Australian Grand Prix. Sainz had qualified ninth, having seen his first run in Q3 ruined by red flags, before an error on his second run meant he failed to put in a particularly good lap time. Worse followed at the start of the race, as a steering wheel issue meant he had to change it just before the start. With the settings on the wheel incorrect, Sainz fell down the order as the lights went out. In his panic to climb back up the field, he flew off the track at the high-speed chicane and spun off to beach his F1-75 in the gravel. Reflecting on his weekend, Sainz explained the issues that led to his bad start. "We had similar problems with the switches with the car as [Saturday]," he told media, including RacingNews365.com . "Some switches [were] not working; we had to change the steering one minute right before the start, which meant the second steering wheel was not well configured for the start. "I had the wrong torque map setting, which put me in anti-stall at both starts (formation and race) which meant, unfortunately, we went backwards on the Hard tyre. "Then, with the rush of wanting to come back through the field, I made a driver mistake."
Sainz: I should have stayed patient
The Spaniard's race-ending error was a particularly rare occurrence. Sainz completed every race in 2021, only finishing outside the points on two occasions, meaning his last race retirement was at the 2020 Russian Grand Prix. Sainz's performance was in stark contrast to the utter dominance of the weekend by teammate Charles Leclerc, who was untouchable at the head of the field throughout. Sainz held his hands up to admit he hadn't responded to his setbacks in the correct manner, and also said there is work to do on Ferrari's part to ensure a smoother weekend. "I need to be hard on myself for [a] driver mistake," he explained. "Obviously, we're still getting to know these tyres and clearly the Hard tyre this weekend was very tricky in the initial laps. "As an initial conclusion, I shouldn't have pushed so much and I should have stayed patient. "But, at the same time, we were not perfect as a team. Too many steering issues, anti-stall, problems in quali, which always put you on the backfoot – it puts you under pressure and I didn't react accordingly."
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