“Aston Martin has much better degradation than us. And the Mercedes, who are second in qualifying, then in the race they put us two or three tenths”, analyzes Carlos
“The first stint was perfect and I pushed Alonso, but we shot ourselves in the foot with a very long stint with the hard, with many inconsistencies,” he admits.
Carlos Sainz he finished Saturday’s qualifying in third place and convinced that he had the pace to fight for the podium this Sunday at the Miami Grand Prix. However, at the moment of truth, the man from Madrid could not get past fifth place, after succumbing to George Russell.
“We have to keep testing things. Every weekend we try things, but we fought for pole position on Saturday and then Sunday comes and they slap us in the face in the race,” said Sainz, resigned to the superiority of his rivals and not only the Red Bulls.
“Max and Checo’s car is on another planet and Alonso’s Aston Martin has much better degradation than us. The Mercedes that are second in qualifying and then in the race put us two or three tenths”, Carlos analyzed.Sainz He started third and pressured Alonso for the podium until the first stop. The sensations with the midfielders were good, but he took a risk with the hard ones to surprise the Asturian and the strategy did not turn out as expected: “I felt very good with the midfielders and they made me think that the podium was possible, that passing Alonso It was possible, and it was a very strong stint that gave us the chance to go for the undercut. We pitted on lap 18 and by stopping and doing a couple of fast laps with the hard ones, that ruined the rest a bit of the race”, he explained.
“From there, we have started to degrade the tire, to overheat it, and that shows that you have very little flexibility with our car to make different strategies. The minute you go out of the ideal laps we suffer a lot with the hard rubber. We suffer much with the inconsistency, with the overheating of the tire and the lack of flexibility”, added Carlos.
“If we had done a bit more standard strategy, going longer with the medium, we would have suffered less with the hard, but we tried. We went for the podium and maybe it cost us fourth place. I did the first stint perfectly and I pushed Alonso, maybe we shot ourselves in the foot and it was a very long stint with many inconsistencies”, the man from Madrid closed.