Despite finishing inside the points in eighth on Sunday, Carlos Sainz Jr felt a better result around the streets of Monaco could have been possible had he not lost ground in the pit stops.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver had started sixth on the grid, but fell behind Sahara Force India’s Sergio Perez and McLaren-Honda’s Fernando Alonso during the race, and despite being on the end of a four-car train behind Alonso that included both Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg for a long spell of the race, could not find a way to move forward.
The Spaniard felt the experience of driving around the Monaco circuit in the wet was difficult, but was happy to be able to keep the car off the barriers and score more points.
“I’m not that happy finishing in P8 if I say the truth, because I felt that today there were some big points on the table for us and we lost the opportunity of making them ours,” said Sainz.
“From my side, I kept the car away from the walls and was fast on all three compounds, so I’m happy with that, but it’s disappointing to have lost positions during our pit-stops… We definitely need to analyse why this happened, as we threw away many points because of this.
“Anyway, P8 means 4 points, which is not that bad – I would’ve been happy with this if you had told me before coming to Monaco, but after starting from P6 and seeing how chaotic the race was, I’m sure we could’ve done better.
“I have to say that this was my first time ever driving in the wet through the streets of Monaco and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life!”
