F1 | Ferrari, Carlos Sainz: "I didn't give up, finally the first victory"

It took one hundred and fifty races to bring Carlos Sainz not only his first pole, but his first career victory. The Spaniard's dream seemed to have gone up in smoke at the start, when Verstappen immediately took the lead after the green light, but Zhou's very serious accident rewound the tape, with the race direction opting for a restart grid. The positions return to those of qualifying and this time Carlos is more aggressive than ever, he defends himself on the Red Bull, maintaining first position. An error on the tenth lap, however, forces him to give the go-ahead to Max, with Leclerc instead attacking the exhausts of number fifty-five. Here the problems begin: a symphony, unfortunately out of tune and badly orchestrated, of radio teams between the Ferrari wall, Sainz and Leclerc. The Monegasque has more, but the wall cannot bring himself to give the order, and when he does it is too late, with Hamilton who seems to be the same as he once was. At the stop it is the Spaniard who enters first and asks the wall not to let Leclerc go away, to maintain the DRS and defend himself from the Mercedes. There is also a problem on the SF-75, with the team asking him to do a lift and coast due to the little fuel available, which could prevent him from finishing the race. Then, the Safety Car: Ferrari calls only Carlos back to the pits, while Leclerc stays out with the white tires. Everyone mounts the Soft and the team asks the Spaniard to leave distance from the Monegasque, to help him in the defense. He doesn't agree, he begs them not to do this to his race and immediately takes advantage by taking the lead at the restart, leaving Leclerc to be fed to Hamilton, Perez and also Alonso. Lewis Hamilton takes the fastest lap on the last lap and breaks the Grand Chelem: Carlos Sainz wins his first Formula 1 race, after ten years the victory of a Spaniard with Ferrari, the fortieth winner of a GP for the Maranello team. It's a shame that this great, long-awaited victory came in circumstances that do no credit to the team: Carlos coveted this result, and it's understandable, but Ferrari wasn't able to manage this race well, perhaps compromising Leclerc's hopes instead. who could have recovered important points on Verstappen.

"It was a really difficult race, but as has always happened in my career, things happen, even in complicated situations. We keep fighting, we don't give up and we keep moving forward. We need to understand what happened to Friday's performance, when I was the fastest on the track, while today that wasn't the case, but even so we managed to win Sainz explained. the most delicate moments were in the radio communications, but the team handled it well, the first time the team asked me to let Leclerc pass I did, I was trying to keep up with the pace required by the team, I'm there succeeded but destroying the tyres, because I had too much understeer in the fast corners and we need to understand why we suffered from this. That's why I couldn't be as fast as the team asked me to be and so I let Charles pass. I tried to follow him, I was there 3 or 4 seconds away, waiting for something to happen and when the opportunity presented itself we took it. The last overtaking was very clean, I had a lot of grip and I didn't want to damage his race, knock him out or anything. I knew I had the pace to take the position, but I wanted to do it without wasting his time, so I went there cautiously. I don't know how I will celebrate, maybe I will do it tonight in Maranello".