Carlos Sainz Jr secured six World Championship points in his home Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday, and felt it was a good recovery after starting the race twelfth on the grid.
The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver finished eighth on the road but inherited seventh when Pascal Wehrlein took a five-second time penalty for a pit lane offence, but the Spaniard was happy with his performance, with the pace of his STR12 appearing to be strong throughout the 66-lap event.
“What a good race, I’m very happy!” said Sainz. “It was a bit chaotic at the start – we managed to gain a couple of positions but I then ran wide into Turn 2 in order to avoid the accident… I therefore lost some of the positions I had gained, but we were P9 and from that point onwards it was a full-on attack race to try and recover.
“We managed to do just that and finished P7 after starting P12, a great result! I really enjoyed it out there today because we were always faster than the car in front and never looking in the mirrors. It was also amazing to have such big support from the fans – I was feeling it!”
Sainz felt it was a ‘complete weekend’ for himself and the team, and he was happy to give his home fans something to cheer about at the Spanish circuit.
“I was pushing the whole time, going for the cars I had in front, trying different ways of attacking both on track and in the pit-lane and we managed to do a very complete race weekend,” said Sainz.
“During my in-lap at the end of the race I looked up to my grandstand and it was amazing to see them all so pumped up and cheering me on – I’d like to thank everyone for this amazing support.”
