McLaren were ‘simply stronger’ than Ferrari in China – Sainz

Carlos Sainz Jnr says Ferrari were not as strong as McLaren over the Chinese Grand Prix weekend after the team finished fourth and fifth.

It was the first time a McLaren has finished ahead of both Ferraris in a grand prix in 2024 and Sainz believes it was a fair reflection of the relative performance of the two teams in Shanghai.

“I think this weekend they’ve been stronger – simple as that,” Sainz said.

“I think McLaren, at this kind of circuit, they’ve shown better pace than us. And even on top of that, we qualified behind [them] and if we get in trouble in the first lap, then there’s no chance we’re going to beat them. So, we need to do better next time.”

Like Norris, both Sainz and team mate Leclerc started on the medium compound and made a single stop for hard tyres – Norris doing so under Virtual Safety Car conditions. Leclerc admitted that the team’s pace on the hard tyres was not what they expected it to be.

“I think as a team we are quite confident that our race pace was very strong,” he said. “However, we didn’t drive on the hard tyres until [the grand prix]. And once we put on the hards, we were much slower than what we expected. So that was a big surprise.

“Especially McLaren were very, very strong on the hards. However, having said that, I think we have also been put on the back foot with the Safety Car, because that put us on the same strategy as everybody. Until that moment, I was doing a really, really good job with the tyres and I was very confident that we could do a great race. After that, it was much more difficult.”

After complaining about how difficult it was to prepare his tyres in his car at the previous round in Suzuka, Leclerc said Ferrari had worked on addressing those concerns over the weekend in China. Asked if he was confident about doing a better job of getting his tyres in the right window in Miami and future rounds, Leclerc replied: “Yes – 100%.

“There’s been a lot of work on that,” he said. “It’s not yet at the level where I want to be, but I’ve understood the direction and soon I’ll be back on top.”

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