Carlos Sainz Jr, Ferrari, Monaco, 2022

“Terrible” traffic after pit stop cost me Monaco GP win, says Sainz

2022 Monaco Grand Prix

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Carlos Sainz Jnr says he could have won the Monaco Grand Prix if he hadn’t lost time in traffic when he made his pit stop.

The Ferrari driver ran second in the early stages of the race on a drying track. He gained the lead when his team mate pitted to switch from wet weather tyres intermediates.

Sainz resisted the temptation to do the same, and moved ahead of his team mate when the two Ferraris came in together for slick tyres. However Perez, who did switch to intermediates, was able to get ahead of him and take victory.

“I felt like we did everything that we had to do out there,” said Sainz. “We stayed patient on the wets, we took the right decision to go onto the slick.”

However he lost time after he rejoined the track. “A terrible out-lap stuck behind a lapped car cost me a race win today,” he said.

“You can understand the frustration because a clean out lap could have secured me the race win but it’s how this sport is sometimes.”

After he was told on his radio Perez had pitted for intermediate tyres, Sainz said he didn’t think it was the right decision.

“I knew it from halfway through the first stint, I started to see the dry line and I started to realise that it was going to go straight into slicks,” he said. “I think we did the right call as we were leading the race basically then we pitted for that hard tyre.

“Obviously hard is never easy on the out-lap but I had to do 12 corners like that behind a lapped car, that cost me at least a couple of seconds, that cost me a race win.

“I’m not going to complain too much, I know that this sport is like that. I know that Checo was unlucky in Jeddah with he did a great race plus he got a bit lucky with myself and this podium will turn around one day.”

After the race was suspended due to Mick Schumacher’s crash, Red Bull switched to the medium compound tyres for the final leg to the flag. Sainz’s hard tyres allowed him to pressure Perez at the end, but he wasn’t able to get past.

“I had quite a lot of graining myself, especially on the rear which made the entry to the tunnel quite difficult to get close and to pass,” he said.

“A couple of times I was really, really close to launching a move into Mirabeau but it was still a bit wet in the inside, Checo was braking quite late so I think if I was braking any later I would have taken him out with me.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on ““Terrible” traffic after pit stop cost me Monaco GP win, says Sainz”

  1. Not a single word for his teammate. If I were in the shoes of Leclerc I would immediately stop supporting this jealous clown whenever he made a silly mistake.

    1. Most of this is taken from the interview right before the podium and reacting to questions there (from Coulthard this time), he was asked about the stop, asked about the tyres etc. Not sure people even told him exactly what happened to his teammate by then.

    2. Maybe… he wasn’t asked about his teammate? Jeez, I think you have some personal Sainz issues you should get help for.

  2. Seemed to be one of the Williams cars that came out of T1 just ahead of Sainz and then proceeded to block the road for half the lap. Poor form by the Williams driver, and rather unfortunate for Sainz.

  3. still its the teams responsibility to call a driver in on the right moment and take in account the position he will regain.
    Ferrari strategy failed massively this race.

    1. Planning when exactly to stop keeps being a weakness for Ferrari it seems @seth-space. Most of the time they manage to make it bad for one of them, this time it turned out not optimal for either.

  4. Ferrari simply screwed both drivers.

  5. I rewatched the pit exit of Sainz in his onboard.
    It was a lapped Williams, that acutally overtook Sainz shortly after the pit exit.
    There were blue flags everywhere, but the williams blocked the road until tunnel entrance.
    So I can totaly understood the reaction of Sainz.

    1. Of course, anyone can see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sySvZTlDMNA

      But hey, don’t let a video shatter your parallel reality where Sainz does everything wrong.

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