Carlos Sainz said that Ferrari didn’t get his strategy right in the Belgian GP and that the timing of his first pit stop was not ideal for either a one or two-stop option.
Sainz was the only driver at the front of the field to start on the hard tyres, and he rose from seventh on the grid to the lead as others pitted.
He came in on lap 20 but despite the long first stint he then ran a similar two-stop strategy to most of his competitors – other than George Russell, who stopped once on lap 10 on his way to victory on the road.
The Mercedes driver was subsequently disqualified, promoting Sainz from his seventh at the flag to sixth.
However the Spaniard felt he might have done better had he tried to stop once.
“I feel like we took some risks at the start, starting on the hard,” he said. “We even won a position [from Norris]. So I was very optimistic and positive about this strategy.
“We managed to extend it quite a bit to lap 20, with hindsight, not long enough, because probably one-stop seemed like a good possibility today.
“And yeah, probably the main thing is that we didn’t do a one, but we also didn’t do an optimal two, because we boxed too late for the two, or too early for the one.
“It’s easy to say now in hindsight, but I felt like the race was promising a lot more. After 20 laps, I was like, we might have a shot at the podium.
“And then suddenly I finished P7 nine seconds behind the P6, so clearly, there’s something that we will have to look at. At the same time I think our direct competitors today were quicker, so I don’t think it would have changed much.”
Expanding on what could have been done differently he said: “Starting on hards, if anything, we would have needed to commit to extending another 10 laps at least.
“On a two-stop, maybe boxing five, six laps earlier to spend as much time as possible on that hard tyre that today was performing really well.”
While team mate Charles Leclerc took pole and finished fourth on the road and third in the final results Sainz said there was no real sign of progress.
“When you see the pace of Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren in the race, I don’t think so,” he said. “I think two or three-tenths. So yeah, we started on pole, and we still finished P4.
“With my car, I felt like we were on for a podium. And then as soon as everyone put their hards on, you could see which pace everyone was doing, and even though my last stint, I felt very competitive and quick, then when they told me the lap times of the others, I was not quite as quick as I thought I was.”
Regarding bouncing he said: “Yeah, the quicker we go through corners, the worse it gets, so towards the end of the race, we were not on holidays!”
Adam Cooper F1 