Carlos Sainz reveals he chose to stay without water in the French GP: “I prefer to be faster by a tenth”
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Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz drove incredibly well in France. All weekend, he had looked the more comfortable Ferrari driver, and he had proven that by topping Q2, with his lap putting a gap of more than 9 tenths between him and Max Verstappen, who at that point had been the fastest driver on the track.
Unfortunately for him, qualifying was never going to matter for him. For taking new components, he started from the back of the grid. By the end of the race, he had been able to climb to P5 (which is the same result as Charles Leclerc in Canada) but it could, and probably should, have been higher.
If Sainz hadn’t had the penalty, his pace looked very good for the win. Unfortunately for him, during the race, his strategy of going long with the hard tyres was compromised when his teammate crashed out from the lead of the race, and the team chose to call him into the pits. Sainz then pit again on lap 43, 10 laps from the end, after having climbed to P3 at that point.
Carlos Sainz: “It was very hot,”
Carlos Sainz had a troubled race. When the Spaniard was locked into battle with Sergio Perez for third position, his engineer came on the radio to tell him to come into the pits. This left many stunned, and Nico Rosberg said that he was ‘lost for words’. Knowing that he had the pace for the win, and still being unable to get anywhere near the podium would not have left him a very happy man.
Despite that, Sainz drove an impressive race, capped off with an amazing overtake on Sergio Perez, just after his team had told him to dive into the pits for a scheduled pit stop. Sainz had to juggle his team’s radio message AND try to overtake Perez at the same time. And to make it even more impressive, he did not even have a water bottle in the car.
Of course, Sainz was not the only driver to not have the drink in France: Lewis Hamilton did not have it either. On being asked about Hamilton not having the drink, Sainz revealed: “I didn’t drink. The car is overweight and so I decided not to take a bottle. I prefer to be faster by a tenth. It was very hot.”
Going into Hungary, Ferrari will desperately be hoping for a clean weekend. They have not had a race without incident for a very long time, going back to Canada, but even that was tainted because Charles Leclerc had to take penalties. The Hungaroring is expected to suit the characteristics of the car, and Mattia Binotto has said that they will be aiming for a 1-2 finish.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)