It was a race to forgot for Ferrari as they failed to finish in the points with both cars for the first time this season, with team boss Mattia Binotto admitting the Portuguese GP was a disappointing one. Carlos Sainz qualified fifth but fell out of the points after struggling after his pit stop, while Charles Leclerc salvaged a sixth place finish but never really challenged for more. "We are definitely disappointed about today, as we wanted to see a better result because we thought we would be better here," Binotto told Sky Sport Italia. "It already didn't go well in qualifying and it didn't go well in the race either. "We tried an undercut with Sainz but it didn't work out and because of that he had to push too much and we had problems with tyre consumption. It's not the result we thought or hoped for. "Sainz maybe could have held back a bit more after the pit stop because he had plenty of time after that, but he and the team really wanted to overtake Norris so maybe we should have handled that differently."
Sainz rues Norris battle
Sainz echoed Binotto's sentiments regarding his battle with Norris, stating that as soon as he saw graining on his medium tyres he knew that his race would be a challenging one. "Everything was running pretty smoothly at the beginning, but we tried the undercut on Lando and pushed really hard on the outlap to try and make the undercut," Sainz told Sky Sport after the race. "As soon as I tried, I saw the graining on the medium appearing, and once that the graining appears, there's very little you can do. "It was very early in the race, we went onto the medium really early on, and I could see that graining opening up and seeing that it was going to be difficult to control. We don't know why the medium tyre didn't work and we need to learn why. "We need to see what we could have done better."
Leclerc less than satisfied
Leclerc felt that his Ferrari reacted well on the hard tyres which he switched to after his pit stop, but like Sainz, he couldn't understand why his car struggled with the medium compound as much as it did. "I feel like we made a bad choice today," Leclerc told Sky Sport. "I think we made a great decision to go on the hard tires, but the medium for us, and only us, we struggled massively. "Whether it's Carlos or myself, the first stint or Carlos on the second stint with the medium tires, we had a lot of graining straightaway and we struggled a lot with this compound. I don't have any explanations as on paper it looked like a very good choice, but then once we were in the race we struggled a lot." Leclerc believes sixth was about as well as he could have done on Sunday, especially when looking back on what was a less than stellar weekend overall. "Sixth was the best I could have hoped for? Yes," Leclerc added. "If I look at the whole weekend, I haven't done a great job as a driver, whether it's free practice or qualifying. "I didn't get the maximum out of the car because I was very inconsistent. Today I did a good job, but there wasn't much more I could do."
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