Carlos Sainz, Ferrari Formula 1 driver, claims his fight against his team-mate Charles Leclerc cost them huge points at Chinese Grand Prix.
Both, Leclerc and Sainz, started from sixth and seventh position respectively. However, both lost their position to George Russell and Nico Hulkenberg from Mercedes and Haas. Both lost their place in first corner of Shanghai.
Leclerc pushed Sainz outwards at Turn 2 while understeering, who struggled with his own tyres temperature. However, both got back on track and got ahold of Hulkenberg. But Russell kept them at bay, who ultimately let Leclerc pass on lap 9 while Sainz had to wait for him to pit.
Sainz believes the fight among team mates cost them Chinese GP. He commented on the battle with Leclerc: “It was a bit of a crazy race. What we did at the start cost both Charles and I one or two positions and that cost us a lot in the race.
“Then we tried to follow the Mercedes, we tried to overtake him but he stopped and then we stopped, we put the hard tyres on very early.
“In the last stint, I had to go very long, but we still managed to hang on for fifth, which I think was the maximum we could do.”
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Ferrari struggled in Shanghai against the expectations and had to settle for lower pace.
“Honestly, we weren’t very fast this weekend. When you qualify sixth and seventh there’s not a lot of pace in the car,” said Sainz.
“In the race, we expected to be better. But we weren’t, so clearly this is the circuit where we suffered the most.
“We need to check if we’ve done everything we could with the set-up. And if not, it’s time to work on the car because this type of circuit didn’t go well for us.”
“I just focused on getting to the end and making sure Russell didn’t pass me on new tyres. And we managed to do that.”
Sainz “went over the limit” to maintain his dominance as driver. He will depart the Ferrari team for Lewis Hamilton, who had activated his release clause with Mercedes F1 team.
