"It's a damage limitation weekend for me": Carlos Sainz still struggling with his Ferrari as he finishes P5 in Sprint shootout

Carlos Sainz mentioned that the race weekend down in Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix isn't going in the best way for him after a huge loss during both qualifying sessions.

Formula 1 is back with racing at Baku in a completely new weekend format for this very Grand Prix. While Ferrari and Charles Leclerc look pretty much back with their pace, Sainz struggled to get control of the SF-23 and perform as well as his team did.

Leclerc was able to grab the pole positions in both the qualifying sessions (the main race and the sprint race). However, Carlos Sainz qualified P4 for the main race on Sunday, and only P5 for the sprint race.

His final qualifying lap was said to be ruined when Leclerc hit the wall ahead of him, perhaps slowing him down. However, the Spaniard revealed that this was not the case and he was "clearly lacking" this weekend:

"I don't think I lost much time [with Charles incident]. Nothing new today, I'm just struggling with the car, with the feeling. Clearly lacking this weekend."

"It's a damage limitation weekend for me."

George Russell, who couldn't even make it to Q3 during qualifying for the main race on Sunday, managed to stay ahead of Carlos Sainz for the sprint race and will be yet another obstruction if he wishes to steer clear of his rivals.

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Carlos Sainz evidently struggling with Ferrari's SF-23

Earlier after the end of the first qualifying session of the race weekend, Carlos Sainz revealed that he was struggling with the car's balance and pace. This is not the first time that acquainting with the car has been a struggle for him, but his pace in Baku has been too slow compared to teammate Charles Leclerc.

Speaking to the media including Sportskeeda, he said:

“Yeah specially sector 1 I was always tending to do mistakes but yeah honestly since the very first run of Fp 1, I was just struggling. Same car, same setup as Australia, for some reason I was just off, off the feeling, off with the balance, my own driving and I was just tending to struggle quite a bit."

Carlos Sainz is still ahead of his teammate in the standings after Leclerc saw himself retiring from two of the first three races of the season. However, Ferrari's pace was questionable, especially in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Coming to Baku, it seems that they have found the key to battle with Red Bull, and with the Monegasque's pole start, they could be in a position to perhaps achieve a victory soon.