MADRID, 8 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) regretted a new Sunday suffering “with the tires” at the Miami Grand Prix, where he had to settle for being fifth when they bet on the podium, with “little flexibility” in the strategies of career.
“It went well with the average, I felt good, it made me think that the podium was possible, that passing Fernando was possible. It gave us the chance of the ‘undercut’, we stopped on lap 19. By stopping and doing some fast laps with the hard we have ruined the race because it has overheated”, he said in statements to Dazn collected by Europa Press.
“It shows that a bit, that we have very little flexibility with our car to do different strategies. The minute you try something different you go beyond the ideal number of laps to do with the hard and the session can be very long. We suffered a lot with the tires,” he added.
The Madrid rider explained the good first stage with a medium tyre, which could have been stretched, but how things went wrong when he switched to hard and lost control, in addition to fourth place, looking for a podium finish. “We have to keep testing things. Every weekend we try things, we fight for pole position on Saturday, and then comes Sunday and they give us a bit of a slap in the face in the race,” he said.
“The Red Bulls, on another planet; the Aston Martins with much better degradation, the Mercedes in the race put us one or two tenths when they are one second away in ‘qualification’. We have tried to go for the podium and it has cost us perhaps the fourth place. The second round we shot ourselves a bit in the foot,” he added.
On the other hand, Sainz was asked about the five-second penalty for entering the pit lane past speed in search of that strategy to overtake Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin). “In the end it didn’t cost me anything but I was worried the whole race because if there was a safety car I could end up out of the points again due to that mistake,” he concluded.