After finding himself eliminated in Q2 during Qualifying on Saturday and down in thirteenth position on the starting grid, Carlos Sainz Jr. drove a superb British Grand Prix on Sunday to claim best-of-the-rest honours in sixth place.
The Spaniard started the race on Pirelli’s medium compound of tyre and was able to go deep into the race before making his one and only pit stop, with the McLaren F1 Team racer capitalising on the mid-race safety car intervention to jump his way ahead of many of his closest rivals.
One of those was Renault F1 Team’s Daniel Ricciardo, with Sainz putting up an almost heroic defence against the Australian for pretty much the second half of the fifty-two-lap race around the Silverstone circuit, with the gap between them less than eight-tenths of a second at the chequered flag.
“A good Sunday!” enthused Sainz. “After a tough Saturday the plan was always to recover with a solid start, tyre management and a good strategy. Again, we operated it perfectly.
“I overtook both Alfa Romeos off the line to be the first of the Medium midfield runners. The pace was good and we took advantage of the Safety Car to do the only pit-stop I was meant to do today.
“After the stop I could set a really good pace when it mattered and the battle with Ricciardo for P6 was tense but fun. Good racing. I managed to stay ahead and score some good points for the team.”
Sainz says the team will now turn their attention to the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring in two week’s time, with the intention of maintaining their impressive points scoring run and further extending his point’s advantage over Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Räikkönen in the Drivers’ Championship, the pair separated by thirteen points in seventh and eighth respectively.
“We’ll analyse the whole weekend now and start thinking about Germany,” said the Spaniard. “Let’s keep pushing.”
