Carlos Sainz has opened up on how he's had to "reinvent" himself as a driver this season to try and find the pace to challenge with Ferrari.
A season that promised so much has ultimately proved underwhelming for the Italian giants, despite starting the year with a one-two in Bahrain. However, both Sainz and Charles Leclerc have been plagued by a series of tactical blunders from the team, whilst car reliability has also proved a major issue.
But whilst Leclerc lies third in the standings, his Spanish teammate is down in sixth, behind both Red Bull and Mercedes drivers. And despite claiming his first F1 win in Silverstone this season, Sainz has admitted to finding the campaign difficult.
He's retired from six separate races - in Australia, Emilia Romagna, Azerbaijan, Austria, Japan, and America. That's after managing to finish in a classified position in every Grand Prix of the 2021 campaign.
"It has been an extremely challenging season for me," Sainz told the BBC. "I found a lot of setbacks at the beginning of the year with this new car, with the new regulations, that didn't adapt to my driving style.
"I had to reinvent myself in many ways to try and find the pace. I didn't give up. I kept pushing even in the difficult moments, and you can see it paying off now at the end of the season in terms of speed."
By his own admission, the 28-year-old struggled to get to the grips with the oversteer balance of the new Scuderia cars. Leclerc meanwhile, relished the concept, and proceeded to out-qualify Sainz in the first eight races of the season.
The Madrid-born driver admits that he had to wrestle with the notion of being in a competitive car that he couldn't adjust to, adding: "I had to challenge myself and open up new roads of set-up and driving style that I wish I didn't have to open, because I wish everything had come a lot more natural and positively.
"But it happened this way, and I stayed disciplined. I tried a lot of things and I made a lot of mistakes trying things. But it was all about trial and error and then coming back and discovering a new path that was a little step forward."
