Carlos Sainz: We can be proud of ourselves

Carlos Sainz took the podium in Spielberg, finishing third. The Spanish Ferrari driver considers this a good result after a difficult weekend.

His teammate Charles Leclerc damaged his front wing at the start, pitted at the end of the first lap, fought back the entire race distance and eventually finished eleventh.

Carlos Sainz (3rd): “The upcoming race was eventful! It was important for me not to lose sight of George Russell. We knew that Mercedes might have a pace advantage during the race, but I still tried to stay behind George. However, in the last laps Oscar Piastri was very fast and I couldn’t stop him.

“I think third place is a good result. I think we can be quite happy and proud of ourselves, because this weekend was not easy for our team.”

Charles Leclerc (11th): “The incident at the start completely ruined my race. I consider it a racing incident, but Sergio Perez knew approaching Turn 1 that something bad could happen if three cars entered the corner in parallel.

I saw the space and went there, but he also had every right to do the same, but the maneuver turned out to be too optimistic. As a result, I found myself in the role of a passenger – Sergio squeezed me in and Oscar Piastri squeezed me out. I tried to leave enough space for everyone, but in that situation it was impossible and contact occurred.

There was nothing positive this weekend, at least I can’t find anything positive. The only thing we can say is that we learned a lot in this race, because I followed an alternative strategy and our cars were in different configurations, which allows us to make comparisons. Otherwise, nothing positive.”