Saturday, 21 October 2023
- Sprint Shootout: P6, 1:34.939, 14 laps
- Sprint: P6, 19 laps
- Carlos Sainz was the only driver to take part in the Sprint race of the United States GP on the Soft Pirelli tyre, given that the rest of the grid went for the Medium compound.
- Carlos made the most of the first few laps and passed both McLarens to move up to fourth, but from then on he had to focus on his tyre management.
- His defence against Lando Norris and Checo Pérez lasted until the halfway mark, and then he stopped George Russell’s attacks up until the chequered flag.
- Despite the tyre degradation, Carlos held on to his starting position and scored three points for the World Championship.
QUOTES:
“These 19 laps were tough. Choosing the Soft was a risk that we opted to take, even though we knew we would struggle with pace and degradation at the end. I started well and some good overtaking took us to P4 in the first laps, but from then on came the difficult part, all about tyre management and defending. Keeping Lando (Norris) and Sergio (Perez) behind was very tough and the battle with George (Russell) wasn’t easy at all, but we managed to bring it home and score some points".
“Now we focus on tomorrow, we’ve got much more info to analyse and we’ll try to maximise our Sunday”.
COMING UP:
Sunday, 22 October 2023
- Race: 14:00 local time (21:00 CEST)
