“Being fifth was the best I could do” | Relief

It’s not a happy weekend because Carlos Sainz, who never saw a podium on the horizon and was overtaken for the first time in 2024 by his teammate Charles Leclerc, at least when both were on track. The Spanish pilot assured that “Being fifth” was the “biggest achievement” I could have dreamed of this Sunday. in the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix race as they were not “very fast” this weekend. Except, Ferrari will now have to check whether this is a “configuration problem.” or things will go further.

“It was a bit of a crazy race. At the start, what we did between the two cars at Turn 1-2 cost me and Charles two positions. We lost ground to Mercedes and Haas, which cost us dearly in the race. Then we tried to follow the Mercedes, tried to overtake it, it stopped and we stopped later. We hit hard times very early on and then I had to do limitation very long and not easy,” he explained in statements to DAZN.

Despite this, he praised the efforts made to resist the hard tires, which were at the edge of their limits: “We managed to stay in fifth place, so given the circumstances, I think today is the best we could do.”. “We weren’t driving very fast this weekend. When you qualify sixth and seventh, it means there’s not a lot of rhythm in the car. We expected more in the race. We need to check if we did everything we could with him. tuneAnd if not, then work on the car,” he said.

On the other hand, the Madrid native analyzed the tire strategy. “I was going to go two stops, the thing is that the trip took so long. Safety car What This made us go to one. “I was on a very old wheel the whole race and that’s why I was focused on getting to the end, making sure Russell with the new wheel behind me didn’t overtake me, and we managed to do that,” he said.

“You have to keep in mind that I missed the race and even so I was in the top five in all the races. We’re off to a good start, but perhaps China was the most difficult track for both me and the team Ferrari until now“, he concluded to highlight his year, which today in China was tarnished first private defeat to Charles Leclerc.