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.