Carlos Sainz Jnr said he did not allow the knowledge he will leave Ferrari at the end of the year to demotivate him, after scoring his second win of the season.
He learned before the championship began that Lewis Hamilton would take his place at Ferrari next year. Sainz took five months to decide his destination for next year, eventually committing to Williams as it became clear no seats were available at any of the top teams.
“It’s been a strange year in that sense and also quite a challenging one,” Sainz observed. He missed the second race of the season due to appendicitis then won on his return in Australia.
But soon after Ferrari’s second win of the year in Monaco, scored by his team mate Charles Leclerc, the team fell off the pace of the front runners.
“The year started really well, then we went through a tough period of development, and then suddenly we managed to make the car competitive again,” he said. “I saw that winning chances were still again [available], but obviously Charles took those wins in Monza and Austin.”
Leclerc won as the championship resumed after three weekends without a race. Sainz said he returned from the break eager to win at least one of his final six grands prix as a Ferrari driver.
“It could have been quite easy for me to lose a bit of motivation and to lose a bit of the drive to make it happen, but those three weeks of break served me well,” he said. “I managed to regain a bit of the determination and the drive that I needed for these last five, six races of the season.
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“I managed to put myself in a position with improving my driving and my confidence with the car, to put myself in a position to, first, win in Austin that I didn’t make it happen – Charles did a great job there – and put myself in a position to win here.
“This one I was just going to make sure it doesn’t slip from my hands. It was not an easy one, not an easy year, but I’m proud of the way that I’ve managed to keep myself in it and obviously trying to help the team now as much as I can to win the constructors’ [championship] because it would be the perfect goodbye for me.”
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