‘We’re not as bad as it seems’: Carlos Sainz insists Ferrari can close the gap to Red Bull ahead of Dutch GP

Ferrari could not compete with Red Bull’s pace at Spa-Francorchamps but Sainz is hopeful that gap was a one-off

Carlos Sainz believes Ferrari can close the gap to Red Bull this weekend at Zandvoort after Max Verstappen stole the show with his victory in Belgium last weekend.

Even though Red Bull star Verstappen started the race in 14th, by lap 12 he was in first and in the end won by 18 seconds to team-mate Sergio Perez, with the RB18 a class above all the other cars on the grid.

Championship leader Verstappen also showed superior qualifying speed at Spa-Francorchamps by a margin of eight-tenths of a second to Sainz’s Ferrari.

Yet Sainz - who finished third last week despite starting on pole - is hopeful that was a one-off and this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix will show a return to the tight battles of the first half of the season between Ferrari and Red Bull.

“It’s a new weekend, going back to where we were before the summer break - I don’t think we are as bad as it seems,” he said in the FIA press conference.

Carlos Sainz believes Ferrari can close the gap to Red Bull this weekend at Zandvoort (Getty Images)

“I’m pretty sure we can be back on form this weekend and fight for pole and the win. We’re learning a lot race by race. The team has produced a very strong car which was our main target, to get back to the top and fighting to the top of the grid. We’ve achieved that.

“Racing at the front there’s things we can improve but I see a very solid atmosphere in the team. Hopefully next year we can fight for more race wins and Championships.”

Sainz also praised Red Bull’s RB18 car - with Lewis Hamilton among those heaping praise on chief designer Adrian Newey - but refused to entertain the idea that the seismic gap at Spa will be repeated in the remaining eight races of the season.

Max Verstappen’s Red Bull was in a league of its own in Belgium last weekend (AP)

“They’ve been raising the bar race-by-race but it didn’t seem too far away when we out-raced them in Austria,” the Spaniard noted.

“I don’t believe they’ve improved so much as they did in Spa. I do think we can do things better, we can learn something from such a difficult weekend.

“We’ve done 14 races this year, all of them we’ve been within a tenth and then there’s one which has been eight-tenths. Maybe I’m being too optimistic that it won’t happen again...”