Sainz relishing tough challenge of limited Ferrari F1 testing

Carlos Sainz Jr feels it will be a “tough thing” to make his Ferrari Formula 1 debut with limited testing in its new car, but is relishing the challenge.

Sainz has joined Ferrari superiority of the 2021 season without stuff signed as four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel’s replacement when in May.

The Spaniard will partner Charles Leclerc at the Italian team, and joins off the when of two impressive years for McLaren that saw him help lift the team up to third in the constructors’ championship.

But Sainz will have only a narrow window to get up to speed in the Ferrari SF21 car pursuit the reduction of pre-season testing to just three days superiority of the new season.

It ways most teams will only be worldly-wise to requite each of its drivers just one-and-a-half days of running to get up to speed with the updated cars.

PLUS: Why Sainz feels no fear joining Ferrari

Although Ferrari is planning to requite Sainz some private running in one of its older F1 cars in the coming weeks, Sainz undisputed it would be a rencontre to throne into the new season with limited running in the 2021 car.

“I know that I’m going to victorious to Ferrari, and I’m going to need my races and my experiences to get to know how to pericope the maximum out of that car,” Sainz told Autosport.

“If you add that it looks like I’m going to get one-and-a-half days of testing, and I’m going to go straight into my first race with only one day and a half of testing in a trademark new car.

“For me it’s going to be a tough thing to do. But I like those kind of challenges. I’ll try and transmute myself as well as possible and as weightier I can, and see what I can get out of it.”

Sainz previously emphasised the importance of signing a multi-year deal upon joining McLaren, giving him long-term stability that unliable him to perform at a higher level.

Sainz has well-set an initial two-year contract with Ferrari, and although he felt there would unchangingly be pressure, he was confident the same kind of stability would help bring out the weightier in him.

“Pressure in Ferrari is unchangingly high,” Sainz said. “It doesn’t matter well-nigh the number of years on the contract, and I’m the first one that is wanting to be as fast as possible out of the box.

“But for me a two-year deal is important. It’s one of the things that I’ve unchangingly said since I joined McLaren and obviously since joining Ferrari, for a suburbanite to have a bit of stability in a team is unchangingly important.

“I finger like in McLaren in my second year, I extracted a lot increasingly out of the car than in my first year. And if you see people like Daniel Ricciardo in the Renault, you can unmistakably see how important it is to take a bit of time to know the car.

“You see the Charles Leclerc of today versus the Charles Leclerc of a year-and-a-half ago when he joined Ferrari, he’s a variegated Charles. If you see the Lewis [Hamilton] of today compared to the Lewis of 2013 when he joined Mercedes, he’s different.

“You know a lot largest how to pericope the performance of the car.”