In a new race in which he did not find the rhythm aboard his F1-75, Carlos Sainz focused on recovering the lost position with Hamilton in qualifying and staying in podium positions from the first lap onwards.
Start from beyond the first three positions when you have a competitive car and, to top it off, your teammate achieves the pole position with the same materialit is never a tasteful dish… but it is just the situation that Carlos Sainz had to live in Singapore.
The disagreement of the #55 with the Ferrari wall on Saturday, which led him to be the first to complete his last lap of Q3, when precisely as he pointed out, the ideal is to speed up the clock to the maximum in order to enjoy better grip, even more so when the track was in the middle of drying out, it made him start off the wrong foot.
“In these conditions, when you don’t have that extra confidence, you have to settle for that 3rd place”
However, Sainz realized a Lewis Hamilton that had been sandwiched between him and Leclerc and Pérez in front at the first change: a confrontation against the seven-time champion from which he emerged unscathed and in podium position, which he managed to maintain until the end.
Even so, it is striking that, while ‘Checo’ was able to overtake Leclerc and leave with him at the head of the race, setting a pace that was impossible to match by the rest of the grid, the Madrid driver was losing pace lap by lapwith the sole goal in mind of holding Hamilton back.
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«I never found the rhythm in the wet, and after I couldn’t fight the two above», confessed Sainz, relegated to trying to keep the last step of the podium while upstairs they fought for victory with a better pace.
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“I had even more problems with the rear of the car. In the end, in these conditions, when you don’t have that extra confidence, you have to settle for that 3rd place. Good thing I haven’t made any mistakes.I was able to finish the race and I was able to be fast towards the end of the race, when I gained confidence”, continued Sainz.
With this result, Ferrari leaves Singapore with 66 more than Mercedesthe silver menace that has been threatening to take second place in the constructors’ championship from them if their results continue to be questionable, with several pole positions so far this year they have not converted into victory.
«A good result for the team ahead of the constructors’ championship, but it’s a shame not to get the victory”, added a Sainz who stressed that “it’s crazy how long it has taken to dry”, with a dry line that was not seen until the last section of the race.
“We were doing laps and the dry line never appeared, in some places it was still sliding a lot. It is certainly something to remember for the future, because this track is unique in that regard,” Sainz concluded.