Sainz on Ferrari's radio messages: "I did what the team wanted"

Ferrari's mixed messages

At various points in the race, Ferrari experienced disagreements. To start with, Leclerc felt he was much quicker than Sainz and wanted to swap over. This was repeated later in the race. At the restart, Ferrari wanted to ensure Leclerc had plenty of space to warm up his hard tyres. Sainz responded to this during an interview on Sky Sports. 

"Charles was doing a great race. We managed a good race together. We were both 1-2 and I didn't want to compromise him. I did what the team wanted and when I overtook him at the restart I didn't want to put him in trouble because I knew he would struggle on the hards. I didn't want him to loose time. I tried to be as clean as possible," Sainz said. 

Whilst Leclerc didn't get the result he wanted, he still made small gains on Max Verstappen in the World Championship after the Dutchman lost performance. Sainz said that Ferrari need to keep improving to ensure they stay in the fight with Red Bull Racing.  

"I think we are doing a step small every time. We need to see where the pace from practice went. I think I was the fastest guy in practice by a bit of a margin and I lost this going into the race. I had a lot of understeer in the high speed damaging the front tyres but if we understand this we will make a step for Austria," he added.