McLaren F1 Team’s Carlos Sainz Jr. has branded his Styrian Grand Prix as “a very disappointing day” after losing out on solid points due to a problem during a pit stop.
The Spaniard started well, in third position. For much of his first stint, he was running in fifth place, maintaining the gap to the cars behind. Stopping on lap 32 to switch from a set of soft tyres to the medium compound, there was an issue with seating the rear-left wheel, which made them lose valuable time.
When he left the pits, he ended up in traffic, meaning he had to push harder than he would have liked in order to build the gap again.
“A very disappointing day for me. We missed out on big points after a problem at the pit-stop. The first part of the race we were running fifth with a solid pace and managing the gap to the cars behind. Unfortunately, we had a bad pit-stop, which meant we came out of the pits in the middle of traffic,” said Sainz Jr.
He went on to explain that as a result of having to push harder due to the pit stop, it drained the charge which was left in his battery, and meant his tyres wore more quickly over the course of his second stint.
“I had to push too hard too early to try to recover the gap, and that drained my battery and ultimately compromised my tyres for the second part of the race. One of those days when nothing goes your way.”
Nevertheless, despite his disappoint at losing out on some good points, he has moved on and is not concentrating on winning them back next weekend at the Hungaroring.
“Time to turn the page and come back stronger, but we missed out on a good fifth place today. We win and we lose as a team, so we’ll try to fight back in Hungary next week.”
