Having been in championship contention during the first half of last season, Ferrari's 2023 fortunes have not been as kind and the team has managed just three podium finishes this season.
All three have been courtesy of Charles Leclerc as Sainz has not managed to stand among the top three finishers this season, as an inconsistent SF-23 car has vacillated throughout the top 10 order.
The continued battle with Mercedes, allied to the greater competitiveness of Aston Martin and now McLaren, has offered Ferrari stern competition with mere tenths between each team. This has proven to be the difference between top three results and finishes amid the lower reaches of the points.
Sainz reckons that the closeness of these battles means that Ferrari should celebrate the middle ground more often. By that measure, he added that it must accept weekends where results may not be particularly stellar if the team and drivers have performed to their utmost.
"It's been obviously relatively a frustrating start when we kind of realised that Red Bull was such a big step ahead of us and it was going to be difficult to challenge them," Sainz explained.
"I think we all expected the car to be more competitive, ourselves to be more competitive and the field has got really, really tight.
"Now you're going through these massive up and downs where some weekends you might be fighting for P3 and others you're just finishing P8, which in performance swing just might mean you are 0.1s in front missing or 0.1s behind that tight field, which is not a lot.
Source: Autosport