Frustrating sprint system

I've played a few races recently where the sprints went horribly. The other teams drivers are nothing more than 1 star, and they're still out qualifying me by seconds. The cars are absolutely untouchable in the race, and I simply lose money by playing it. I've been having to buy funds constantly for the past few weeks, and all the gold I've saved since 2021 is going down the drain. Any help from anyone?

The driver skills don't matter as those get unified in sprint races, apart from health as training to the last makes it more challenging (as well as worn engine). An important factor for pace is getting the setup vs design slider correct, experiment with that and don't be shy to go extremes. For early race default fuel is too much for indicated laps and often too long a stint for anything but hardest compound.

Not sure if you still need help, but here is my recommendation.

set the slider to get you with

ideal setup 100%
accelaration 30
braking 30
downforce 20
fuel economy 20
handling 20
tyre economy 30

if you cant get ideal setup to 100% i recommend the closest you can for it.

Now lets talk about strategy. 

For wet races, its really difficult to have a race where you need to go for wet tires, if you are unsure about how much water is on track go for inters (inters works well between 0 and 3 mm), my recomendation for fuel in this case is to always think of 2 stops, so in a race like Austria, you can prepare for 3 laps, and reduce a liter of fuel, wich should be about 7 liters.

Now lets talk about dry tracks

Hungary, I recommend 1 stop using mediums or softs. both worked for me. 5 laps always, if you do 6 or 7 laps, other cars will probably undercut you. 9l should be fine for 5 laps if your engine is good.

Canada, I recommend mediums, 4 laps always, 9l should do too.

I talked about these 2 first because I only use different tires for them. For the rest i always go for hards.

I made a table together with some friends, with track and fuel I use (Yeah some of them I go for a 0 pit strategy), maybe it will help you:

🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi 17L
🇦🇺 Australia 19L
🇦🇹 Austria 19L
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan 19L
🇧🇭 Bahrain 17L
🇧🇪 Belgium 11L
🇧🇷 Brazil 11L
🇨🇦 Canada 9L
🇨🇳 China 10L
🇪🇺 Europe 17L
🇪🇸 Spain 9L
🇺🇸 USA 10L
🇫🇷 France 9L
🇩🇪 Germany 9L
🇬🇧 England 9L
🇭🇺 Hungary 9L
🇮🇹 Italy 17L
🇯🇵 Japan 11L
🇲🇾 Malaysia 12L
🇲🇨 Monaco 15L
🇲🇽 Mexico 11L
🇷🇺 Russia 19L
🇸🇬 Singapore 11L
🇹🇷 Turkey 11L

By the way in tracks with 15 or more liters, avoid using push 4 and push 5, even if your tires get a little cold, tires get really bad below 30%, so avoid it as much as you can. And happy racing.

Thanks so much, you've been the first real help here in a while