Carlos Sainz feels he had pace to challenge for podium in Silverstone. Carlos feels he had pace to challenge for podium in Silverstone.

Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz Jnr is sure that he had the pace to fight for a place on the podium in the 2021 British Grand Prix at Silverstone last weekend.

Carlos lost out in the inaugural sprint qualifying race when he was involved in a first-lap collision with the Williams of George Russell, which meant that the Ferrari driver, who was ninth on the grid, dropped down the order to the back of the grid but was able to fight back and recover to 11th place, which became 10th on the grid after Russell’s penalty.

In the opening laps of the 2021 British Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz rose to sixth, and ran as high as second when rivals ahead pitted. His own stop was slow and dropped him behind McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who he had already battled with and wasn’t able to pass.

“Unfortunately we had that slow pit stop that cost us a position to Daniel. The pit stops all year have been great, and it’s the first average pit stop that we do. I think today was one of the best balanced [cars] I’ve had all year. And considering that 60 laps ago we were last, to finish sixth is not that bad.” – he explained.

Carlos Sainz’s team mate Charles Leclerc led most of Sunday’s race and finished second after conceding the lead to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton late on. The second Ferrari SF21 car finished 40 seconds further back after being unable to overcome Daniel Ricciardo’s straight-line speed advantage.

Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto admitted an issue with one of the team’s wheel guns was to blame for Carlos Sainz’s slow pit stop. He said the gap between the two drivers was due to only one of them being able to spend most of the race in clear air.

“If you compare our two drivers, one of the two has been stuck behind [rivals], and the other has done a very good pace. But when Carlos was in clear air, he had pace similar to Charles”.

Carlos Sainz pointed out that Charles Leclerc’s race pace “shows that the car today in clean air was not there to quite win, because in the end the Mercedes is clearly a bit quicker, but very close to the podium and really great to drive.” – he concluded.