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Ferrari arrived at the start of the season in Bahrain having missed its mark, with Charles Leclerc retiring and Sainz struggling to keep up with Aston Martin, “cooking” his tyres in the process as he lost out on a podium.
Ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, team boss Fred Vasseur maintained that Ferrari’s main issue in Bahrain was a lack of pace rather than a return of its poor tyre management.
In Jeddah, on a much smoother and less demanding circuit, Ferrari’s SF-23 challenger again struggled on Pirelli’s harder C2 compound.
Putting on the hard tyre for the second stint, Sainz soon fell back after an unfortunately timed safety car bunched up the field.
After a strong opening stint on the soft tyres, Leclerc also regressed on the hard compound as the pair finished a distant sixth and seventh respectively, 35 and 43 seconds behind winner Sergio Perez.
It led to Vasseur admitting afterwards that Ferrari’s weakness is “clearly on the management of the different comp …