"There are going to be a lot of opportunities"- Carlos Sainz confident of winning F1 titles with Ferrari in future

Carlos Sainz believes he will have plenty of opportunities to claim victories and fight for championships with Ferrari in the future. The Spanish driver feels the biggest progress the team has made is in terms of performance.

Speaking to the on-site media during the 2022 F1 Italian GP weekend, the Ferrari driver said:

“What makes me the happiest of all is that it looks like the team has turned a corner in terms of pure raw performance, and this year we’ve had a great car. We’ve had great opportunities to win races. The team is back to being competitive and I know if I get myself at the level I can be, which recently has been a lot closer, then there are going to be a lot of opportunities in the future.”

Taking positives from the 2022 F1 campaign, Carlos Sainz believes Ferrari have made huge progress in terms of performance with their car and engine. The Spanish driver feels that the team can only improve in the future and there will be plenty of opportunities to win and fight championships in the future.

Further outlining his expectations from Ferrari in the future, the Spaniard said:

“We’re going to improve, keep improving as a team and make sure that we also get to a level where we’re winning championships. But that means we need to perform at an incredible level, between all of us, and I’m going to do my best to help the team and help myself to get to that level.”

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Carlos Sainz terms his 2022 F1 title campaign upsetting and frustrating

Upset by a mixed bag of performances in his 2022 F1 campaign, Carlos Sainz admitted that it has been a frustrating year despite having a competitive car. He claimed that adjusting to the new car and extracting competitive results was very frustrating. The Ferrari driver, however, reckons his performance curve has improved since France and there have been more competitive results.

Asked about his 2022 F1 campaign and the mixed bag of performances, Sainz said:

“It’s been rather upsetting. I’ve found it very frustrating, that after so many good years in Formula 1, I come into my first year having a competitive car and it’s the car that I struggle the most with driving. I find it incredibly frustrating, especially knowing how good I am and how good I’ve been the last few years in Formula 1, how, in the first year that I have a car to win, I find it such a difficult car to drive for my driving style and to set it up for my liking.”

Further elaborating on his performances this year, Carlos Sainz said:

“But then the growth progress has been huge during the season and I managed to find a much better level. But then as my championship hopes were starting to pick up, I had this DNF in Austria that completely stole the positive trend. Since then it’s been the penalty in France, the difficult race in Hungary, the podium in Spa, but even if I’ve been a lot more competitive since Canada and Silverstone, it’s still been difficult to get a bit of a run of good results.”

While Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc was able to compete head-to-head with Red Bull's Max Verstappen as a title contender, Carlos Sainz had many unfortunate moments which hurt his 2022 F1 title campaign. The Spaniard initially had some unfortunate retirements and then was unable to adjust to the car as easily as his teammate. Despite his troubles, his win in the Silverstone race was a morale booster and his performances after the summer break have been consistent. Sainz is currently fifth in the championship standings, with very few races left on the calendar to target a potential third place in the championship.