He finished fourth, but the result could have been much better.
Carlos Sainz dreamed of achieving his first victory in Formula 1 at the Spanish Grand Prix, but things got complicated from the start. The Madrid driver started from third place on the grid, behind Leclerc and Verstappen, and far from facing them, he lost several positions after a bad start.
Just when he was trying to come back, Carlos suffered a run off the track caused by a gust of wind that threw away any chance of victory to get on the podium before the more than 120,000 fans who cheered him on from the stands.
A mistake that hurts even more if we take into account the abandonment of his teammate, Charles Leclerc, when he was leading and Verstappen’s problems with the DRS, which could have ‘helped’ him in a possible fight for victory.
“It was a shame. A bad race from start to finish. We had a lot of problems with the balance and the gust of wind caught me, I didn’t know how to manage it,” Sainz explained after the race at the DAZN F1 microphones. “The car has been damaged in the ground area. In the end we were fourth but suffering a lot”.
Sainz, despite the problems, managed to stay in the points and faced the end of the race in fourth place. He was overtaken in the final laps by Lewis Hamilton, who had come back from last place after his contact with Kevin Magnussen at the start, but the Briton had to lift his foot due to an overheating problem and Sainz overtook him again.
NOT! 😖 @Carlossainz55 to the gravel in the first sector 😕#SpainDAZNF1 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/bSv7fuy6PE
— DAZN Spain (@DAZN_ES) May 22, 2022
In the end, Sainz was fourth and scored important points, the only ones for the Ferrari team in Barcelona, since his teammate, Leclerc, was forced to leave due to a mechanical problem in his car.
“It was a bad race for the team. We don’t know what happened, but this is a 23-race championship and we know there will always be good and bad,” Sainz said.
The next stop on the 2022 F1 calendar will be the Monaco Grand Prix, a place where last year Carlos Sainz achieved a brilliant second position and his first podium finish dressed in Ferrari red.
Now the man from Madrid and his partner, Leclerc, will have to fight to recover the leadership of the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships, which has passed into the hands of Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
