Carlos Sainz Jr secured his best result of his blossoming Formula 1 career with a seventh place finish at the Circuit of the Americas despite starting from the back of the grid following a crash during the wet qualifying session.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso finished sixth on the road but fell to seventh in the final result due to a five-second penalty for exceeding the pit lane speed limit during his first pit stop, with the Spaniard praising his time for being able to repair his damaged car in time for the start of the race.
“What a mad, amazing race!” reflected Sainz. “We were fast from start to finish and I’m really happy with today’s result, my best so far this season.
“To start from P20 and to finish P6 is just unbelievable. Okay, P7 after adding the 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit-lane because of the pit-limiter not working is a bit of a shame, but I’ve still got a very big smile on my face!
“It was an action-packed race, with many safety cars, tricky pit-stops, plenty of overtakes… I really enjoyed it out there this afternoon! My race engineer even said over the radio that I was “on fire”, which made me smile!
“I’d like to thank the team for getting the car ready in time for the race and I’m happy that I’ve been able to reward them with such a positive result after a troubled morning. Max [Verstappen] also did a great job and it’s great that the team got so many points today, we definitely deserved it!”
