The Spaniard managed to make the most of improvements to the SF-23 in Barcelona as he became Max Verstappen’s closest challenger to pole.

But while performances at such a circuit where the air is so crucial bodes well for the progress Ferrari has made, Sainz believes the nature of the Barcelona circuit is not actually performing to its best potential.

He believes the high-speed nature of the venue is not particularly suitable for Ferrari, so future venues will have clearer evidence of progress.

“The new kit is mainly about improving low-to-mid speed, and in that area we really feel like a step in the right direction,” he said.

“As I said before the weekend, it’s a step in a different direction. It’s not so much a big upgrade or a big change in our performance as it opens up a different operating range window for the car.

“That’s the main goal of this upgrade, not suddenly half a second faster. I think it’s doing the job, and it’s working well.

“We also want to make the car more predictable, easier to drive, and easier to do laps. Hopefully it will go in that direction, but unfortunately we’ve gone down a route that doesn’t work for us.

“We’ve been really bad at high speed since the start of the season. Since Australia we’ve been struggling with balance and bounce and a lot of things that happen to us at high speed.

“So, we’re just going to focus on that now and see if we can improve it because, as you can see, the low speeds aren’t actually bad at all for us.”

Top three in qualifying Lando Norris, McLaren, pole position Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari

Photography: Mark Sutton/ motorsport pictures

Sainz believes the fact that he put Ferrari on the front row, while team-mate Charles Leclerc ended up being eliminated in Q1, is further indication of one of his team’s biggest weaknesses – its very narrow operating window, which is It’s all too easy to suddenly lose competitiveness.

“I don’t know exactly what happened to Charles, but it’s been the same story all year,” he said.

“It felt like it was a very narrow window for us; a very narrow car window; and a very tricky car.

“Once the situation gets tricky, it goes in one direction or the other and you’re fighting with a very different balance. It was a good line for me today.

“It turned out not bad, but it was tough because now it looks like the midfield is really starting to get close to us. You have guys like Alpine and even Haas, Lando (Norris) and McLaren showing up. Yes, they join us in the race for second or third place.

“Obviously Red Bull are in a league of their own, but everyone else, it looks really, really nervous.”

Russell also had bounce problems in the high-speed corners of Barcelona, ​​which made it harder to drive his Mercedes W14 to the limit, with the Briton reporting he believed he had problems with his tires early in the first quarter.

“The car didn’t feel good every lap of the race,” Russell said when asked by Autosport about the car’s behavior.

“We made some small changes from FP3 to quali, and the car bounced a lot in high-speed corners.

“In the corners that were easy to get flat in practice, I couldn’t get it flat. I couldn’t get the tires to work, everything went wrong. From the first lap in Q1, I knew we weren’t going to have a good day. It was weird .

“We should take advantage of conditions like that, which we usually do. As a team we usually do well when it’s challenging, but today, especially with me, it was different.”

Russell was knocked out in the second period after contact with team-mate Lewis Hamilton and was six-tenths off Max Verstappen’s benchmark time for the stage.

Russell mentioned that Q1 leader Nico Hulkenberg was 1.5 seconds behind to underscore his struggles, adding: “I’ve tried all kinds of outer circles, all kinds of pressure. Probably just getting ourselves a little bit lost and confused.

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG

Photograph: Sam Bloxham / motorsport pictures

“For those cold, wet, oily conditions, the set-up changes we made in qualifying were definitely going in the wrong direction, which is a shame, especially because I think we have a very fast car. I think in FP2 In , we probably have the second fastest car after the Max, ahead of the Ferraris.

“So not all is lost. Tomorrow we just have to be patient and try to bounce back.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff backed Russell’s downbeat assessment of his weekend, admitting the team had gone the wrong way with his car.

“It was clear from the start that the set direction we were going with George made the car worse,” he said. “I think from the very beginning he was complaining that he didn’t have any grip, he had bounce and the car was understeering before it was oversteering.

“That’s something we need to unwind now to see exactly what we could have done differently.”