Carlos Sainz doesn’t “believe” Red Bull’s poor Friday form at the Singapore Grand Prix was genuine.
Ferrari led both Practice sessions at Marina Bay, with the Spaniard pipping teammate Charles Leclerc by just 0.018s under the lights in FP2.
In contrast, Red Bull, who have won every race so far in 2023, finished only seventh and eighth. But Sainz is more than expecting them to jump forward on Saturday.
“No. I don’t believe it,” he said on if he thought Red Bull’s poor pace was genuine.
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“When you look at the long run pace, they looked like the strongest car. Once they sort out the one-lap pace they’ll be there fighting for pole.
“Hopefully we will be in that fight, but it also looks like Aston [Martin], McLaren, Mercedes should also be in that fight. So, I think we are on for an exciting day tomorrow and hopefully we can get the best out of it.”
At the same time, Sainz acknowledged the usual pecking order often doesn’t apply at Marina Bay, notably when Mercedes also struggled despite a dominant car in 2015.
“Yeah, a little but at the same time you always need to arrive in Singapore very open-minded,” he added.
“We’ve seen in the past very weird performance swings at this track as it’s a very particular one.
“So far it looks like it’s suiting our car well and it’s going well with the way that we’ve hit the ground running in FP1 and we could fine-tune the setup a little bit for FP2, and be a bit quicker.
“It looks good but I do believe the track is going to change a lot for tomorrow, ramp up the grip a lot and it’s all about who finds the perfect setup for tomorrow.”
Leclerc was also urging caution despite Ferrari’s strong start in Singapore.
“Yes, we are surprised but we’re not getting carried away either,” said the Monegasque. “It’s only Friday and we expect the other teams to show more of their true potential tomorrow.
“It’s a good start but now we need to focus on ourselves and hopefully we reproduce the same tomorrow.
“It’s going to be very close for sure. Again, I expect the others to be much faster tomorrow, so let’s see.
“I hope we won’t have any bad surprises [or] that we’ll be less competitive than we are at the moment. But for now, everything looks good, and I hope it will be the same tomorrow.”
