Carlos Sainz Jnr said his team mate has complained about incidents in races “too many times” following their latest run-in during today’s Spanish Grand Prix.
The two Ferraris finished the Spanish Grand Prix in the same positions they started, with Charles Leclerc fifth and Sainz in sixth.
However, this came after the pair made contact on the third lap of the race when Sainz attempted to pass Leclerc around the outside of the first corner. Leclerc suffered minor front wing damage from the clash.
Speaking after the race, Leclerc suggested Sainz had failed to follow pre-arranged team tactics by attacking him early in the race and that his team mate had “wanted to do something spectacular” at his home grand prix.
Sainz dismissed those complaints. “I think it’s too many times that he complains after a race about something,” he told Sky.
“I was on the attack,” he explained. “We were on new soft [tyres], Mercedes were on used soft and we had to go on the attack in the first laps when you have a new tyre and try to pass them.
“Like we even said before the race, I passed Charles because I don’t know if he did a mistake or if he was just managing a bit too much.”
After passing his team mate, Sainz caught and attacked Lewis Hamilton. “I nearly passed Lewis, I undercut Lewis, we nearly passed Russell at the pit stop. So I think I was trying out there what I have to try as a driver, what is required from me as a driver. And he elected to manage more.”
After the clash, the two Ferrari drivers used different strategies with Sainz taking hard tyres for the final stint and Leclerc running on softs. Sainz was asked by the team to allow his team mate through in the later stages of the race to attack George Russell on the hard tyres ahead, which he did.
“In the end, for him, [the contact] kind of paid off because he beat me at the end on a soft-medium-soft,” Sainz said.
“For me, I elected to be aggressive – soft-medium-hard – and it didn’t pay off. It is what it is. I think George and I on the hards at the end, we were just too slow, while the guys on softs were very quick.”
Asked about the clash between his drivers, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said he did not believe it prevented his team from taking a better result in the race.
“You have also other situations in the race where we lost one or two seconds, here and there,” Vasseur told Sky. “Carlos swapped when we asked him to swap at one stage, it…
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