After leaving McLaren for Ferrari, Sainz has often met his former team on the track as the two teams battle for third place in the 2021 F1 Constructors’ Championship, a battle that is currently only 15 points behind McLaren.
Last weekend’s British Grand Prix was the last race in which Sainz battled a McLaren after tailing Ricciardo for a long time in the Silverstone race as they battled for fifth place.
As in previous races, Sainz was unable to beat a McLaren in direct combat as the McLaren’s superb performance, powered by its Mercedes engine, was too much for Ferrari.
“Unfortunately, it has happened to me a couple of times that I got stuck behind a McLaren that I couldn’t get past,” said Sainz after finishing sixth in Ricciardo’s wake.
“It’s not news, they have a very good straight-line speed, very strong stance and power on corner exit and it is probably one of the most difficult cars to overtake.”
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Sainz was frustrated after an early overcut on Ricciardo failed due to a poor pit stop by Ferrari that left the Spaniard in the pits for an extra ten seconds while his left front wheel was tightened.
That ultimately meant that Sainz was behind the Australian until the very end.
“Yes, unfortunately we were one step behind Ricciardo for the whole race,” he added.
“First in the middle class, then we actually overtook him at a very fast pace on the cleaner laps, but unfortunately I had to follow him again after the slow pit stop.
“On the hard tire it was even more difficult to overtake him because it just felt like the hard tire couldn’t take the load of the dirty air at the high speed and I was understeer a lot more and couldn’t keep up with it High speed.
“Even though I had DRS, I wasn’t close enough to try to get it.”
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