Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz took his third podium finish of the 2021 Formula One championship thanks to his P3 at the Sochi Autodrom on Sunday, a race in which the Spanish driver took the lead at the start but was overtaken by Lando Norris after 13 laps.
Carlos Sainz could only hope to finish fourth in the Russian Grand Prix until the late rain gave him the opportunity to rise up to third place thanks to a well-timed switch to intermediates, following home Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz has been working throughout the current season to try and get up to speed at the Maranello team after his move from McLaren and after the Russian Grand Prix he can be proud of having an 8.5 points advantage over teammate Charles Leclerc in the 2021 Formula 1 Drivers standings.
The result capped off a solid weekend for Carlos Sainz that had seen him qualify second on Saturday in damp conditions, prompting the Spaniard to label it as his best weekend yet with Ferrari.
“I think I managed to put a very strong weekend from practice, especially into Q3, and then a good start and good pace management in very tricky conditions. I’m not going to lie, I’m proud of the weekend. I think the team has also done a very good job with all of the pitstop calls, yesterday going onto the soft tyre at the right time, today going into taking the intermediates at the right time. Overall, I think it’s been my strongest weekend in Ferrari.” – he explained.
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Due to a far from ideal stint on the hard tyres, when he was stuck behind Gasy, Carlos Sainz was told by Ferrari over the team radio that he looked set to finish the race in fifth place, something he conceded “came as a bit of a surprise” at the time.
“After leading the race, you are at least confident that you are in the fight for the podium. I didn’t exactly know where the others were at that point on-track. I knew I had done a pitstop, 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 put the medium at the end, we were going to be an easy prey for them, and we were most likely going to finish P5.” – he added.
After clearing traffic, Carlos Sainz was able to improve his race pace up his pace and grab third place thanks to the late rain, although he conceded the result “doesn’t taste as good” after leading the race. What we need to keep working on as a team is to make sure the next time I am in the position of leading a race, we make it stick and we win the race, we don’t suffer as much as we suffered with graining and we were not so vulnerable on the straights and all that. [We need to] make sure we keep improving as a team to make it stick next time.” – the Ferrari driver concluded.
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