Carlos Sainz Jnr praised the pace of his Ferrari after finishing second to Max Verstappen in the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver spent the last 20 laps chasing the Red Bull but was unable to find a way past. Nonetheless he was encouraged by the performance of his car.“I’m particularly happy with the race pace, with the way we managed to put pressure on Max during the whole race,” he said. “The timing of the pit stops, everything was right.
“Honestly we tried everything and we were very, very close to winning today so I will take the positives and keep trying in the next one.”
He spent several laps within DRS range of Verstappen. “I was pushing flat-out, I wasn’t leaving any inch to the walls under braking, I was pushing everything with the battery.
“I tried everything to pass Max but today we just didn’t have enough pace to get close enough in the hairpin to then get him a bit out of line into the chicane.”
“The positive thing is that we were quicker,” he added. “We were faster all race, it’s just that little bit more to overtake around here.”
Verstappen said his car’s top speed proved the decisive factor in the fight between the two. “Luckily this year we seemed really quick on the straights so that helps a lot,” he remarked.
A Safety Car period in the final third of the race allowed Sainz to restart on Verstappen’s tail with fresher tyres. “The Safety Car didn’t help,” Verstappen admitted. He had been closing on Sainz until the interruption gave Ferrari an opportunity to pit.
“I think overall they were very quick in the race so it would’ve been really tough for me to close that gap in the end with them on fresher tyres.
“But it was really exciting in the end, I was giving it everything I had, of course Carlos was doing the same. Following is tricky around here but I could see he was pushing, charging, pushing.
“But of course naturally when you’re under DRS it’s a bit easier to charge. The last few laps were a lot of fun.”
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2022 Canadian Grand Prix
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The doctor
19th June 2022, 21:43
Well if you were faster then overmaking with drs should be posible. But hé was only faster because of the drs hé had the last 15 Laps.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th June 2022, 6:55
The Ferraris were faster, but mainly in the corners “The Doctor”, less so in a straight line where Red Bull have really focussed on this year.
the doctor
20th June 2022, 7:47
well why was Verstappen quicker in the first 2 sectors than Sainz all those laps?
Jin
19th June 2022, 22:02
All race haha. After the last SC on fresher tires he meant.
Edvaldo
19th June 2022, 22:11
If he really wanted to win this he would have lunged from far back or something.
But he’s so average and predictable. And Max knows it too.
superman
19th June 2022, 22:33
So he’s admitting he’s not good enough in the fastest car?! What a clown.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
19th June 2022, 23:44
If Max had been in Sainz’s place, he would have at least tried to go for it. He was just looking at Max’s rear wing for 10 laps waiting for a mistake.
superman
20th June 2022, 0:28
Ferrari need to get rid of this caveman berk as soon as possible! He only made it to F1 on the back of his actually talented father, he had no place in a top F1 team or even elsewhere on the grid.
Him, Stroll and Latifi need to go asap
DaveW (@dmw)
20th June 2022, 1:27
To be fair leclerc was in the same position in KSA and also could not get past. The RBR is fast and you really have to wrong-foot Verstappen on battery strategy to have a chance.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th June 2022, 6:56
Yup. Just as we saw in Jeddah, this design choice has its disadvantages on some tracks @dmw.
sumedh
20th June 2022, 6:39
Not sure I reached the same conclusion. If you look at laps 10 to 20, when Max had ~10 laps fresher tyres, he was consistently 0.3-0.4s quicker than Sainz. And you see lap 20 to 35, when Sainz had ~10 laps fresher tyres, Sainz was only 0.1-0.2s faster. And after Max did his 2nd stop, he was second a lap faster than Sainz. Without the late safety car which severely advantaged Carlos, this was a stroll in the park for Max.
Even Charles didn’t seem to be faster than Carlos today. I think that new rear wing is somehow affecting their low speed traction too, making overtaking difficult and eroding some of the lap time advantage gained via the new rear wing
baasbas
20th June 2022, 7:36
The ‘we were faster all race’ was a reference to previous Ferrari race pace… The way it was written just makes it seem he meant Verstappen. To me it seems like a bad idea to use it as a headline. It makes it seem like all the author wants to do is stir up another comment section.
Also, I’m far from a Sainz fan, but why is he receiving hate here? What did he do wrong exactly? He botched 1 sector on his Q3 lap. The rest was basically faultless. Save the hate for when he actually messes up, or better: skip it altogether and be a kinder person?
pastaman
20th June 2022, 16:18
There are a lot of Sainz haters on this site, haven’t figured out why. Hateful comments in general on this site have gotten pretty bad over the past few years TBH. It’s like they get up in the morning just to go out and troll the internet. Sad creatures, really.
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31)
20th June 2022, 9:20
The thing that Ferrari were faster than Red Bull (if it’s true at all) is not a positive, it’s a negative. Being faster and losing so many races this year. Let’s remember Jeddah, Miami, Imola, Monaco, now Montreal. So many points lost with a faster car, according to Ferrari. Even if it’s only in Montreal, they still lost the win. And if RB are really slower, they are maximising their package, and that really counts in title fight.