The Singapore Grand Prix weekend started to fall away from Carlos Sainz as he crashed during qualifying in Q3.
Starting P10, the 3-time race winner lost two places after Franco Colapinto made a brilliant lunge into turn 1 and got the car stopped at the apex, and it allowed Sergio Pérez through as well in the process.
The Ferrari driver was not impressed by the move Colapinto made.
“Starting from the dirty side, I actually got a decent start. But going into Turn 1 I think there was a Williams [Colapinto] doing a bit of a banzai move.
“And obviously with how much we have to play on the Championship, I had to take avoiding action and if not I would have probably had a big contact from the Williams,” Sainz said.
Sainz’ and Ferrari then opted for a risky strategy pitting in lap 14 to change his medium tyres for the hard compound and go to the end of the race in a one-stop strategy. It finally paid off allowing the #55 to do a massive undercut and grab a P7 result.
He held off fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso in the closing stages.
“From there, we obviously were even further back in the midfield [P12] and we took a bit of a bold aggressive strategy pitting so early, to try and get out of that midfield battle and the whole midfield, which we did, and then go to the end on the hard which worked for us.
“I managed to actually do a pretty good job and find a balance between overtaking a lot of cars and managing the tyres to the end.
“It was never going to be an easy task but I think I did a reasonable job about it and I managed to bring in P7 after being very far back after the start and having to take avoiding action.”
The driver Madrid further discussed his race, and highlighted how much trickier it is for Ferrari to get the tyres in the optimal window this year like they did in 2023 over a qualifying lap, particular post-summer break.
“A bit compromised by the start but then some good overtakes, some good pace when we needed and at least we made it through the field, if not something similar to what happened to Checo would have happened to us.
“I think what keeps being a bit of a trend this year is that we have a very narrow window for the tyres to perform in our car. I think last year the car switched on the tyres whenever we wanted. This year there seems to be a very fine line between getting them in the right window or not.
“So yeah, we’re trying to figure that out.”
Sainz voiced out his expectations for the last six races of the season as F1 prepares to go into a 4 week break before racing in Austin, Texas, for the US Grand Prix.
Ferrari looked very strong in Baku and Singapore, and Sainz is aware two podium opportunities were on at both events.
“I think in general the last couple of races have been a bit of a wasted opportunity and I’m not happy with how things have gone on these last two weekends.
“At the same time, you never know what there is around the corner and we might be surprised with how we can perform in Austin, Mexico, Vegas and these tracks.
“I’m going to keep myself optimistic, six races left in this long year, but I’m going to work on my weaknesses, trying to feel a bit more confident going into turn one and qualifying because clearly these last few weekends haven’t been the best approach.”
