“It came as a bit of a surprise”– Carlos Sainz was surprised to know that it took a confusing series of events to give him a podium.
Carlos Sainz bagged a P3 from the Russian Grand Prix, a needed result for Ferrari, considering Charles Leclerc got a blank from his P14 finish.
Sainz led the race for numerous laps, but he came trickling down in the order due to an ill-timed pitstop. But the chaos in the final laps brought him back to P3 by the end of the race.
However, Sainz was shocked to know that if he wasn’t on the course of winning, getting on the podium, and his most likely finish would be P5.
“It came as a bit of a surprise, obviously, because after leading the race, you are at least confident that you are on the fight for the podium,” Sainz told RacingNews365.com.
“I didn’t exactly know where the others were at that point on track. I knew I had done the pit-stop and I knew that I was not getting overcut by anyone, so the pace was decent.”
“Maybe our simulations suggested that because everyone was going to the Medium at the end, we were going to be an easy prey for them and we were most likely going to finish P5.”
“But at that point, I was stuck in traffic with the Hard tyre, I think I was stuck behind [Valtteri] Bottas and he was stuck behind [Pierre] Gasly. Then once I managed to make it through, I could basically do my own pace.”
Ferrari gained over Sergio Perez
Sainz claimed that he could find the pace with the older tyres and would have kept Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez behind him, even if the race remained dry after Lewis Hamilton overtook him.
“I increased the pace quite a bit, we managed to find a decent pace to be P3 and we were on course for P3 until the rain hit and then it was chaos and a mess,” said Sainz.
“In the end, it was going to be a bit better than P5, and I’m glad that we managed to recover a bit from there.”
