Carlos Sainz believes cricitism is "tougher" on Ferrari than other teams when it comes to strategy calls.

This season, it has become a running theme that just when the Italian team looks competitive or on course to win, something happens to ruin it.

Whether that be Charles Leclerc retiring three times while leading or having results impacted by bad decisions from the pit wall.

Teammate Sainz hasn't been impacted quite as much, so perhaps that is why he is more reluctant to suggest Ferrari has a broad issue with strategy.

"It’s very difficult to generalise, saying we should have been more brave or more cautious," he said on Thursday, ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix. “You would need to pick one by one and analyse them independently.

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“I'm pretty sure one by one, every result or every conclusion will be different.

“Maybe we could have been a bit more gutsy here, we could have played a bit more safe here.

“For me, it's all about continuous improvement and continuous[ly] finding ways to make the right calls at the right time.”

Sainz also argued that the reaction to when Ferrari gets things wrong, is much bigger than when things go well.

“There's been a lot of times during the year where we've done the right calls and no one has come to us to say, ‘Oh you did the right call’ or congratulate us for that," he said.

“But on the other hand, when there's been two or three, let's say, bad calls with hindsight, there's been massive criticism about it.

“I find that a bit tougher in Ferrari.

"I feel like when I was in McLaren or in Toro Rosso or in Renault, when there was a big mistake, no one would come and point it out and criticise you and put you down as much as they do in Ferrari.”

As for team boss Mattia Binotto, he also defended Ferrari's strategy insisting it wasn't a "weakness".

“First of all, I think there is always a way to improve. You can’t be perfect and you never will be," he conceded.

“I have no doubt we always need to take steps forward, we need to improve on aerodynamics, chassis, power unit, strategy and all the aspects that can be improved. Having said that, I think I have a great team that takes care of the strategy and I don’t think that’s a weakness of ours.

“Races like Monaco, Silverstone or Paul Ricard have been judged problematic on this front, but I don’t see the team as a problem because I think we have also made the right decisions.

“I’m not convinced what we did was wrong, I think we made what were the right decisions at the time they were made, and sometimes they turned out to be unfortunate, not wrong. And if we look at the work of our strategy team, sometimes they even did great things, better than the opponents.

“We could start discussing, again, Monaco, Silverstone and Paul Ricard – from my point of view I think they were difficult decisions, maybe unfortunate but not always wrong. So I don’t think it’s our weakness at the moment.”