Carlos Sainz Jr had a fluctuating race at the Red Bull Ring, but was happy to end the 71-lap Austrian Grand Prix with an eighth place finish on Sunday.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso started towards the back of the field following an engine issue during qualifying, but soon found himself inside the top ten, but was again down amongst the lower midfield runners after being compromised by the safety car.
Despite this setback, Sainz was able to return to the points, and was happy to clinch a top eight finish to round off a tough weekend.
“I’m very pleased with my race today, especially because we didn’t have an easy one!” said Sainz. “We started from the back and did a good start, managing to get into the top 10 in the early stages of the race.
“Suddenly, after the second pit-stop during the Safety Car period, we were nearly last… Which meant we had to do a very good last stint on the Soft tyres – 35 laps – overtaking lots of cars and managing to get back into the top eight, something a bit unexpected after seeing myself back in P15 with half the race to go.
“After a tough Saturday, I’m happy to finish the weekend with a good result as we’ve worked very hard for this – now we just need to make sure we have better Saturdays in order to start races further up the grid and fight for more points.
“I’m confident we can do it and I look forward to next week’s race weekend in Silverstone – my favourite track together with Spa – where we will keep pushing!”
