The United States Grand Prix was one of Carlos Sainz’s strongest weekends of the 2024 F1 season. A feisty, aggressive run to P2 in the Sprint was followed by 3rd in Grand Prix qualifying as he led the Ferrari charge in both.
After losing out to teammate Charles Leclerc at the start as Verstappen and Norris went deep in turn 1, the Spaniard ran P3 behind the Red Bull driver.
On lap 8 as he looked to be in a promising position to go and potentially overtake his former teammate at Toro Rosso on the back straight, Sainz slowed somewhat out of turn 1 and dropped out of the DRS due to a Power Unit issue.
As it unfolded at the time, the 30-year-old said on the radio he thought he could smell fuel in the car.
Speaking on Thursday in Mexico, the Spaniard revealed he had to save a lot of fuel towards the end, and feeling generally lucky he could finish the race.
His hard tyre stint was very strong on pace, but his chances of victory had long gone in the first stint as he dropped to over 10s behind Ferrari stablemate Leclerc.
“I cannot go into a lot of detail.
“What I can tell you is that it obviously made me lose performance for a couple of laps, and with that the possibility to overtake Max when I was in his DRS.
“And then it also meant that I obviously had to compensate towards the end of the race by having to save a lot of fuel.
“But happily nothing happened. I actually think we were quite lucky with the fact that I could finish the race.
“But yeah, let’s say it obviously compromised quite a lot my race. And a bit of a shame because I felt like I was very quick that weekend.
“But also feeling lucky that I could finish the race in P2.”
The SF-24 has been a fantastic race car throughout most of this campaign. While the package has lacked that last little bit in qualifying trim against Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes quite often, the lack of tyre degradation and strong race pace has made up for it.
Four wins so far equals their total of 2022, a year in which the car was mighty in qualifying and race trim before the summer break.
Ferrari were looking for confirmation that the Monza updates would work at a permanent track following great pace in Baku and Singapore — and they delivered in style with a 1-2.
While Sainz is more hopeful of challenging for wins over the final few races — aside from Qatar — he is fully aware of the importance of qualifying to get himself in the mix.
“Yeah, I think when you look into the detail of Austin track, as long as we survived the first sector, which in qualifying we were two tenths off the Red Bull and the McLaren only in three or four corners.
“Then all of the other corners were perfect for Ferrari. And we managed to make the time back in all the low-speed stuff.
“We are still lacking in high-speed corners, especially in qualifying mode, which makes me feel like Qatar will be still a difficult race for us.
“But all the other circuits, just hopefully be on the mix.
“Then whether you win or not, it depends how is your race pace that weekend, how is the start, how do you qualify.
“But at least be in the mix, which means you give yourself a chance at winning at almost every track, except for maybe Qatar, that I think is not a Ferrari track at all.
“So, let’s see. I’m hopeful, I’m more hopeful after Austin that we can keep up with this performance.
“At the same time, qualifying remains a bit of our Achilles heel this year, because the moment you qualify P3, P4 in a track like Mexico, it’s maybe here with a long straight you can pass into Turn 1 at the start, but in a lot of the other tracks you will not be able to do the kind of race that we did in Austin.”
