Carlos Sainz "A realistic opportunity to beat Red Bull F1 in 2023"[F1-Gate.com]

Carlos Sainz believes Scuderia Ferrari, which is aiming to win its first F1 title in over a decade, has a real chance of overtaking Red Bull Racing in the 2023 power map.

Ferrari started the season in style with a one-two finish last year, with Carlos Sainz’s teammate Charles Leclerc winning two of the first three races.

But the early challenges of Charles Leclerc and Ferrari were quickly overshadowed by a combination of strategic errors, unreliability and driver error that saw Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing furiously head for both F1 titles.

However, despite his disappointment at not delivering results in 2022, Carlos Sainz said there would be many positives from the experience, adding that Ferrari closing the performance gap with Red Bull was “a long way off”.

“I feel I have a shot. I mean, Red Bull were dominant, but they weren’t clearly dominant on pace,” said Sainz of pole position and Ferrari’s season-ending F1 United States Grand Prix. leading monopoly.

“I don’t think we are that far behind in terms of car development and car performance. If you think about it, I got pole position in Austin. We were one-two in qualifying. Us. The car really shouldn’t be that far from Red Bull”.

With Ferrari chasing its first drivers’ title since 2007 and the constructors’ title since 2008, Carlos Sainz said the Maranello operations were where he felt he needed to focus his efforts.

“What we need to focus on is understanding the 2023 tires and seeing how fast they can be in the race because Red Bull is particularly fast in the race compared to us. Because it’s obvious,” said Carlos Sainz.

“It’s another step we’re already working on in terms of strategy, race execution and tire management. But in terms of pure performance, we’re not far off.”

“We just need to add a little more power and downforce to the car and it will be as fast or faster, so hopefully we can do that.”

In 2023, Ferrari will have an unchanged driver line-up with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, but team principal Mattia Binotto will leave and former Alfa Romeo boss Frédéric Vasseur will join as a replacement.