Carlos Sainz fought until the last lap of the race for victory in the Canadian Grand Prix, but he didn’t have enough speed to beat Max Verstappen. Charles Leclerc started from the last row but was able to regain 14 positions and finish fifth.
Carlos Sainz (2nd): “You can imagine how eager I was to get my first win, so I attacked to the limit. The whole race I kept a very fast pace and drove the fastest lap, we gave everything, but we still didn’t have enough speed to beat Red Bull.
It was not easy to overtake today as there was a strong tailwind and the main direct effect of the slipstream, DRS, was very small. A few times I came close to Max Verstappen’s car, but in the end 2nd place was the best I could do.
The difficulty was that when the safety car came on the track and I changed the tyres, Max’s tires had only completed five laps by then, so the speed difference wasn’t big enough to overtake him.
But without the safety car I think I could have kept the first position. I was going very fast and although Max was overtaking, his pace was not fast enough to easily overtake me at the end of the race. But when the safety car left, we had to go to the pit stop and overall I think our team did a good job today.
Still this weekend we were faster than Red Bull for the first time in the season as I overtook Max on both medium hard rubber and Hard. I was comfortable behind the wheel, I was able to ride close to the hurdles with confidence – overall it’s a shame I didn’t manage to get the first win.
Charles Leclerc (5th): “Today I gave everything. If you finish fifth it’s not very exciting, but given the position we started from and the way things have developed, it’s the maximum we could do today.
The second half of the race went well, but at the beginning of the race I was stuck behind a line of cars driving in tandem and everyone could use DRS so there was nothing I could do. Then, in the middle stage of the race, I found myself behind Esteban Ocon, whose tires were much fresher than mine, allowing for a good exit from Turn 10. The less worn tires provided excellent traction to the drive wheels during acceleration, and this was enough to keep ahead of the curve.
I had to be patient and think about the end of the race. Then we had a pit stop, hoping we could be on a clear track, but the pit stop wasn’t too fast, so we got stuck behind slower cars again and had to start all over again.
But the end of the race turned out to be interesting. To earn more points we had to be more aggressive and in the end we took 5th place – I think all together this is the maximum that could be expected.
Now I’m going to prepare for the race at Silverstone. It’s one of my favorite tracks and I hope we get more points there.”
Mattia Binotto, Team Principal and Managing Director: “We knew the challenge this weekend was to minimize losses as one of our cars started from the last row. This allowed us to narrow the gap in the Constructors’ Championship slightly.
This race showed that reliability issues in modern Formula 1 can affect any team. We also have some problems, so the base in Maranello is working hard to find effective solutions to eliminate them completely.
Charles tried his best, regaining 14 positions and after starting from the last row, he finished fifth. Carlos had a great race, showing that he already has a lot of confidence behind the wheel of our car.
Now Silverstone is in the lead and we expect our rivals there to introduce some technical innovations, but we certainly intend to show good results at this track.
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
