Ferrari: Carlos Sainz show, but admission about Mercedes is bitter

A stellar performance, but great caution toward the competition.

Carlos Sainz finishes second in the Sao Paulo Sprint Race, but admits that there is some apprehension in Ferrari about the mighty rise of Mercedes. For if the Spaniard beat Max Verstappen with a screaming overtake, he could do nothing against George Russell and great difficulty was being made in defending himself against Lewis Hamilton’s comeback behind him.

“Normally we have a little more degradation to the tires than the Mercedes,” explained Sainz, retracing his Sprint Race, “They pushed so hard, while I tried to make up positions from the first laps and then bring myself into the fight with Verstappen and Russell. I had to be aggressive because there is a penalty tomorrow. I think second position is the best result we could have achieved today.”

“I’m happy with my race and with Ferrari’s pace. It’s just that Mercedes seems to have really recovered a lot recently, and they are really strong in the race,” Sainz admitted. “We have a good pace this weekend, but they maybe have a little bit more than us. It will be interesting to see tomorrow, when we all use the medium as Verstappen did today.”

Then Sainz told the backstory of his spectacular overtake on Verstappen. “We were on the limit. It was really difficult to overtake. I had to go very tight in Turn 1 to overtake him, because the Red Bull you can only pass if you are extremely aggressive under braking. On the straights they are so fast that you can only attack them that way. I’m sorry if there was a little contact, but that’s racing. Sometimes you have to attack if you want to finish the overtaking,” the Ferrari Spaniard stressed.