Carlos Sainz Jnr was pleased to come away from the 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix with some points, after a tricky start to the weekend for the Austrian owned team, saw both Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers struggle to find the right balance in the STR11 during the three practice sessions.
After qualifying in sixth place, Sainz Jnr was overtaken by the McLaren-Honda of fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso at the start of the grand prix, and was unable to reclaim the position for the remainder of the race, due to the notorious lack of overtaking opportunities at the Hungaroring circuit.
“A solid race from us here in Budapest, I’m satisfied with the result. I’m pretty pleased with the race, even if Fernando Alonso got past us at the start.
“We were able to keep up with McLaren’s pace, something that during the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday didn’t look like we’d be able to do… It was just impossible to overtake him!
Eighth place was the best the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 champion could hope to achieve, and he was happy with the overall result considering the problems the Faenza based team had suffered on Friday and Saturday.
“If you would have told me I’d finish P8 after the bad start to the weekend that we had, I wouldn’t have believed it!
“I think we can be very happy and pleased with ourselves – the team did a great job to turn things around and I’d like to thank them for this! We can now go to Germany feeling confident.”
