Carlos Sainz opens up on racing at Monza as a future Ferrari driver. Carlos did not have much of a chance to celebrate sealing his move to Ferrari for 2021.

Carlos Sainz Jr did not have much of a chance to celebrate sealing his move to Ferrari for 2021, other than by taking his dog for a walk. Piñon the Czech Bearded Pointer may be a terrific party animal but the announcement came in May, when Europe was still in the grip of the pandemic and Spain was in lockdown and a state of national emergency.

It didn’t feel like I had just signed for Ferrari,” Carlos Sainz said – “I mean I was super happy but it didn’t really kick in probably up until Monza. Monza was the weekend where when soon as I landed in Italy, I started to feel a lot of more fanbase, more people coming to me, more people recognising me. And then that started to actually have a very positive effect on me because I just enjoyed the impact that I was having on all those fans coming to me in restaurants and outside and inside the circuit. They were not allowed inside the circuit but you always see fans in Italy, you always see fans near Monza and they always had a chance to recognise me. I could see so many nervous fans just by meeting me and I had never had that feeling before.” – he explained.

Monza would turn out to be a special race for Carlos, as the red flag caused by his future teammate Charles Leclerc crashing into the tyre barriers and a penalty for leader Lewis Hamilton allowed him to challenge for the race win.

Pierre Gasly ended up taking the chequered flag first with Sainz just four tenths of a second behind him. He was left frustrated at not having snatched a first ever Grand Prix victory, a result that would have been the perfect leaving present for his McLaren crew, as well as a promise of things to come at the home of his new one:

“Standing in the podium and not seeing the Tifosi, I mean if I would have chosen a podium or a race to have fans that would have been Monza this year because of what it would have meant.” – the Spanish driver added.

Asked about his move to Ferrari, Carlos added: “First of all there’s a period of just getting to know the team, the car, your engineers. Normally you try and do that in the first few races and in the winter testing. Next year winter this thing is going to be one day and a half or so you cannot call it winter testing anymore is going to be an installation day, more than anything else,” Carlos Sainz says, laughing.