Sainz can't fight Mercedes and Red Bull but ‘could have been there'

"When I see that Charles is capable of fighting for the podium, I am confident that I can do it too, but I am aware that I will have to make up a lot of positions," said Sainz, who at Motorsport.com admitted that he is disappointed. But he tries to look on the bright side. "This does put me in the mood already. I could have been up there with him, looking at the pace of the car so far."

So, the Spaniard is facing a catch-up race. For that reason, he also used Friday mainly to run longruns and simulate different things. "I only drove a few laps with a light load to get a reference in these conditions, but 99 percent of the session I drove with a lot of fuel to understand the tyre degradation and try different set-ups."

The weekend is also about understanding Ferrari's problems for Sainz. The SF21 has struggled with the front tyres this season and so a lot of attention has been paid to that, especially as the front two wheels are asked a lot in Turkey. "I have tried to understand the problems we have with the front tyres and help the team. We have understeer in the car and we are using this weekend as an experiment to understand and solve the problems we have with the car," the Spanish driver concluded.