Sainz has high hopes: 'Going for two Ferraris on the podium'

08:35, 02 Jul 2023
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Carlos Sainz had a good day on Saturday. After narrowly missing out in SQ1 due to problems with his brakes, he finally managed to drive to the podium after overtaking Nico Hulkenberg.

In the sprint shootout, the Spaniard managed to take the start ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc. By finishing third in the sprint race, the Ferrari driver with number 55 took six points in the championship, putting him fifth in the standings with 74 points.

'Checo was just too far'

At the start of the race, Hulkenberg went from P4 to P2, and it took Sergio Perez and Sainz quite a while to find a move past the German. Still, the Spaniard thinks he made an overtake at the first moment it was possible, speaking to the press conference after the sprint race: "The first lap that once Checo passed him, I passed him the lap after. He was very quick, Nico, in the beginning, and then I guess he degraded the tyres a bit more than us. But then, yeah, around the time that I passed Nico is when I had my tyres in the best operating window and I had quite a lot of pace, but Checo was just a bit too far and we couldn't go that far."

Sainz goes for double podium

Ferrari brought an upgraded car this weekend, and this was the first time that many laps were driven with the upgrades on the Prancing Horse's car. "Obviously, Max was very far ahead, but we also had to do the first thing behind, the first part of the race behind Nico. I don't know. I don't know how it will be tomorrow with the degradation, with the pace. I hope the car feels as good as it's felt in qualifying, which would mean that it would be a good race to try and finish on the podium with two cars tomorrow."