Carlos Sainz finished on the podium at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after overtaking Max Verstappen in the final part of the race. The Ferrari driver started second but was unable to fight against the Mercedes F1 drivers, and he was surprised by the rapid degradation of the medium tires.
“It was a bit of a shock, the mediums. I expected us to be strong with those tires, but they lasted eight or nine laps. And then it was just about limiting the damage. J “I would have liked to be faster and fight for victory but we didn’t have what we needed. The podium was the most we could do.” admit Sainz.
After his disillusionment last year due to his accident in FP1, he is happy to score a podium: “I was hoping Vegas had something to offer me, and a podium is revenge, but I made sure to avoid the drains! But that’s the past, and this race still offered a beautiful spectacle.”
The fight was intense between him and Charles Leclerc, and Sainz points out that this has often been the case at Ferrari since 2021: “It was like that for four years, Charles and I fought, maybe not every race, but every two or three races because we shared the same piece of track.”
“We are close in pace and we find ourselves fighting together at the same time as we face the other teams. I don’t think we could have done better than third and fourth today.”
Charles Leclerc was fourth at the start and he also finished in this place. The Monegasque had a disappointing first stint when his tires collapsed. Despite a better end of the race, he could not do better than fourth.
“The first laps were a little hot. I was fast but we saved less tires than the others. It didn’t work because I lost a lot of pace on the first stint, it was better in the next two but it was too late” declared the Monegasque to Canal+.
Leclerc is disappointed not to take more points from McLaren but thinks it was impossible to do better: “Yes, not enough, especially since it’s a track on which we had to be fast. But the Mercedes were the fastest, so if we include that in the balance, we get the best possible result.”
Informed that Max Verstappen had become four-time world champion, he did not seem very receptive to this news: “Ah yes, I had forgotten that detail, so congratulations to him. I think it was a question of time, he had an exceptional season and he deserves it.”
