Carlos Sainz’s hopes were pinned on a good start after failing to overtake Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc in qualifying on Saturday, but a poor reaction at the lights caused him to drop to fifth.
The Spaniard lost two positions at the start in favor of George Russell and Sergio Pérez, although it could have been more if Lewis Hamilton had kept the line in turns 3 and 4. For this reason, the Ferrari driver had to face a comeback race if he wanted to add a new podium after the one achieved in Miami.
His desire to make up positions got the better of him and he lost the rear of his car on lap 7, going into the gravel at turn 4 and dropping to 11th. Little by little, benefiting from the setbacks of the rest of the grid, such as the abandonment of his teammate when he was leading comfortably, he rose to 5th place.
The strategy allowed him to finish one position on the podium, something unthinkable when he was so far down the table when he left the track, and despite recovering 12 points compared to his teammate, he is far from the head of the world championship, with a Max Verstappen which has a 45-unit advantage.
Getting out of his Ferrari, Sainz explained how the race went: “It was a shame, a bad test, from start to finish, with balance problems, but, above all, that gust of wind that must have caught me in the curve 4 that I have not been able to manage”.
“I have gone to the gravel and I have damaged the car a lot on the ground”, revealed the Madrilenian. “I was running with very little downforce for the rest of the test, and we tried to come back. In the end we finished fourth, suffering a lot throughout the race, but it is what it is”.
His teammate, Charles Leclerc, was forced to leave when the power unit of his Ferrari said enough on lap 27 , something that worries the Italian team because they do not know the origin of this mishap.
“It’s been a bad day for the team, and also a shame for Charles, we don’t know what happened, but he is part of a 23-race championship. There are always going to be good and bad dates, this has been one of the worse than we have been this year, but for Monaco we will try to rebuild ourselves”, sentenced Carlos Sainz after adding 12 points to finish fourth.
