Carlos Sainz Jr. was not happy with his eighth-place finish in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, but the Spaniard made it clear that they must remain focused ahead of his home race in Spain despite enduring a difficult weekend.
Sainz qualified in fifth, but started the race in fourth due to a grid penalty for his Scuderia Ferrari teammate. The Spaniard ran behind Esteban Ocon for the first stint and couldn’t get past the Frenchman, who went on to get a podium.
Ferrari didn’t make the best strategic calls throughout the race and delayed their stop for the intermediate tyres, which was the cause of Sainz spinning off at Mirabeau and losing multiple positions, but the Spaniard did acknowledge they were all difficult calls with the changing conditions.
“It was an eventful race in Monaco today. The final result is not what I was aiming for because I had good pace with every compound and P8 is frustrating.
“Pit stops were key today but they were all difficult calls, especially the change to Inter tyres, as the rain picked up very quickly and the spin with the slicks obviously made me lose some positions.
“I leave Monaco with a bitter taste, but next up is my home race and we need to keep focused.”
Charles Leclerc – “The grid penalty that worked against us”
Charles Leclerc would have been dreaming of a podium finish at his home Grand Prix following a strong qualifying performance on Saturday, but that dream was quickly taken away from him when he was handed a grid penalty for impeding Lando Norris on the McLaren driver’s push lap, and the Ferrari driver admitted that the penalty really hurt his chances.
Leclerc admitted that he was on the back foot as soon as he got his penalty, so had to try something different with the strategy when the rain hit to have a chance of scoring a podium ahead of Ocon.
Leclerc said they didn’t push the car too hard in the second stint with the difficult conditions and it was all about getting the car back in one piece as he went on to secure a sixth-place finish behind George Russell.
“We were on the backfoot from the moment we got the penalty yesterday. When it started to rain we could have gone onto the Inters early, but we decided not to as there were still a lot of cars on slicks and so we decided to wait in the hope of a Safety Car which 90% of the time you would expect here in those conditions.
“Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, you might take a different decision but at the time it seemed like a good opportunity to make up a lot of places. I have no regrets about the decisions we made regarding our strategy. It is what it is, but it’s really the grid penalty that worked against us.
“In the second stint, it was all about keeping the car on track and bringing it to the finish. There are still a lot of races left this season and we have several updates coming which I hope will let us get closer to the Red Bulls.“
