Speaking to the media after the most recent race in Monaco, Carlos Sainz assessed the competitiveness of the top teams moving forward.
The 2024 Monaco Grand Prix was the second most successful weekend for Ferrari and the least successful race weekend of the season for Red Bull.
While Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz brought home a P1 and P3, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez scored P6 and DNF. This allowed Scuderia to close the gap in the Constructors' Championship down to 24 points.
The team from Milton Keynes entered this season in a very dominant way, scoring one-two result three times in the first four races, but that seems to have changed after the three most recent races in Miami, Imola, and Monaco.
Asked whether he sees it like its open title fight between Ferrari and Red Bull following the race at Circuit de Monaco, Sainz told the media:
"I think my common sense tells me that on normal tracks Red Bull should still be favourites. Domination, like we were seeing, hopefully not."
"But favourites, yes. And then it will be a very tight fight with both McLaren and us. I think we are all three at a very similar level. Our last reference of a normal track is Imola and Miami."
Miami and Imola seemed to suit McLaren the best, while Monaco suited Ferrari. Moving forward, Red Bull expects to regain dominance at more traditional circuits like Barcelona, but nothing is certain at this point. The 29-year-old continued:
"And if I see those two tracks, we seem to be half a tenth behind McLaren and maybe a tenth or two behind Red Bull."
"And yeah, it still means that that any small progress, any small upgrade, any small thing that we bring to the car might switch it to a potential race victory or a winning car."
The team principal of Ferrari, Fred Vasseur, stated multiple times that Red Bull will start making mistakes if they are put under pressure, and Sainz sees the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix as proof of that as he added:
"And at the same time, being within 24 points of the Red Bull in the Constructors, you see that when you put them under pressure yesterday, Max did a mistake in Q3 run two, Checo was out in Q1."
"We all just need to be there, you know, to show that these things can happen to Red Bull too. And yesterday is the best example."
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