There were mixed emotions for Carlos Sainz as he settled for second place at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard produced an excellent start to jump Valtteri Bottas on the run to Turn 1, running behind Lewis Hamilton during the first half of the race.
Sainz’s good work though was undone amid the drama of the initial Safety Car and then the red flag as he fell to sixth behind Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly and both Alfa Romeos.
But he worked his way back upto second and just fell short of launching an attack for the win, finishing 0.4s behind Gasly across the finish line.
“It is incredible,” the McLaren driver said. “I’m halfway disappointed with P2 as you would not believe that I can have a chance to fight for victory today.
“We were very, very close, but honestly with a normal race, I think I would’ve been P2 behind Lewis because we had really, really good pace. So I think it is what we deserved.”
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Sainz though did admit some surprise when he realised how much he had lost out under the Safety Car.
“With Pierre there in front, it was like ‘Woah, how could that happen?’ But I guess we had a bit of bad luck with the safety car,” he said.
“Then we did a good job to recover it after the red flag.
“I am very happy with P2 as we’ve been super quick all weekend and I feel like I could dominate the midfield pretty easily today. So I have to be happy with that.
“Getting back from P6 to P2 and then chasing Pierre and managing to finish three or four tenths behind at the flag, we [McLaren] need to be proud of that and proud of the pace of the car,” he added.”
