'Team player' Sainz frustrated: 'Penalised during pit stop'

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carlos sainz frustrated with ferrari in austria 2023
2 July 2023 at 17:55
Last update 2 July 2023 at 18:20
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  • Kada Sarkozi
  • Editor

Early in the Austrian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz was the fastest of the two Ferraris, but in the end the Spaniard was missing from the podium. Partly due to a five-second time penalty, Sainz had to settle for fourth place, behind winner Max Verstappen, his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez.

It all could have been different if Sainz had been allowed to attack Leclerc at the start of the Ferrari Grand Prix. However, his team forbade that, referring to agreements made prior to the race. Sainz then had to make his pit stop during the virtual safety car - as did Leclerc. Even as he drove out, the Spaniard grumbled that he had not wanted to make that stop at all.

Sainz had 'worked for the team'

"Yeah, well the gap went from four tenths because I was on his gearbox the whole stint, to six, seven seconds and three positions lost in that first pit stop," Sainz told Sky Sports afterwards. "Obviously, I felt like I did the team game, I played the team game, staying behind and being penalised the way I was penalised with the pit stop, losing a lot of time and losing the three positions and six seconds with the VSC ending when we could have maybe done something different. It frustrated me, I lost a lot of time and then trying to recover, which I did pretty quickly with the gap and the time from the track limits too, and from there my race was quite compromised."

'For what goes around,' is the saying. Sainz - as he believes himself - sacrificed himself in Spielberg for the team. Is the next time Ferrari will have to do something for him? "I don't know, I don't really want to say I am owed, I just do the best job I can. I'm in a very good moment personally with the car, I'm driving very well, I'm very fast every race weekend, putting together some good laps in quali but also especially in the race pace, being very quick, doing some good overtaking today out there, some good defending, and that's why I'm pleased and frustrated that the result wasn't better today."