Sergey Sirotkin admitted that his start to the Chinese Grand Prix could have been better following a difficult third career race.
The Russian started the weekend well by out-qualifying his more experienced team-mate Lance Stroll for the second of a possible three times, setting the sixteenth-fastest time to Stroll’s eighteenth-fastest.
Unfortunately this pace didn’t continue into the race, with Sirotkin struggling at the start of the race then having issues with getting the Soft tyre into a good operating window.
He eventually went on to finish fifteenth, one place behind team-mate Stroll.
Commenting on his performance in the race, Sirotkin said he felt that it became a case of “trying to get to the end of the race“.
“It was a difficult race. I had nothing to lose so I had to fight at the start. I tried to get some positions but when you’re right in the midfield it’s difficult to do something and I think I could have managed better.
“Afterwards I really struggled to find the pace. It was quite difficult to find the window with the tyre and it was a very tough first stint.
“At some points when I was in free air for a few laps it was stabilising a bit, but overall it was really tricky. We pitted for a new set of mediums and then new softs under the safety car.
“I don’t know what happened to them but they had far less grip than the mediums so we lost quite a bit with that, then we were just trying to get to the end of the race.”
