“I think it’s just our car with the layout, it suited the car really well. Here, of course, you run a lot of downforce on the car, completely different track layout and less straight line speed in general, so it’s going to be interesting.
“For sure if we nail our set-up, the car is going to be quick, but it’s a bit of a question mark of how quick it’s going to be compared to others.”
Sainz pointed out how quickly the pendulum had swung in the earlier part of the season. “It doesn’t seem too far ago when in Austria we outraced them by quite a big margin and in France, it was me passing the Red Bull of [Sergio] Perez coming from 20th – it was only three races ago,” he added.
The Ferrari driver was referring to the Red Bull Ring where Charles Leclerc passed Verstappen three times en route to winning the race, while Sainz was poised to make it a one-two until an engine blowout struck.
Then in France, Leclerc was comfortably in the lead until he spun into the wall, while Sainz put in an impressive recovery drive after starting from the back due to an engine penalty.
That weekend Ferrari was also on pole and, overall, the team has had the edge over Red Bull in qualifying this season – nine poles to four.
“We’ve done 14 races this year, all of them we’ve been within a tenth in quali and in the race and then suddenly there was one [where] it was eight tenths,” said Sainz.
“And also, maybe I’m just being too optimistic that we will not see that happen again, but it’s my feeling and maybe this weekend it will prove me completely wrong, but we will see.”