Carlos Sainz believes victory at Monaco was denied by a lapped car after finishing runner-up to Red Bull's Sergio Perez. The Ferrari driver took the lead of the race after an inspired call to bypass the Intermediate tyres on a drying track. With Perez and Sainz's teammate Charles Leclerc pitting for the Intermediate compound, Sainz saved a pit-stop by staying on full wet tyres before switching to slick tyres. However, the Red Bulls made the move to the dry tyres before Ferrari, which resulted in Perez undercutting Sainz to take the lead of the race.
Frustration for Sainz
Speaking after the race, Sainz believed that a delay behind a backmarker just before his pit-stop meant he failed to completely capitalise on the strategy. "I felt like we did everything that we had to do out there," Sainz told Sky Sports F1 . "We stayed patient on the wets. We took the right decision to go until slick [conditions]. Being stuck behind a lapped car cost me the race win today. "I think we did the right call as we were leading the race. Then we pitted for the Hard tyre, obviously Hard tyres are never easy on the out lap, but I had to do 12 corners or something like that behind a lapped car that cost me at least a couple of seconds. That cost me a race win. "You can understand the frustration because a clean out lap would have secured me the race win today, but that's how the sport is sometimes."
Sainz blames graining for lack of overtaking attempts
With the race red-flagged due to Mick Schumacher's crash , Perez restarted the race on Medium tyres, with Sainz equipped with the Hard compound. Perez's tyres started graining towards the end of the race, and Sainz closed the gap and started applying pressure for the win. However, Sainz didn't believe any overtaking opportunity was available due to his own tyre graining issues. "You can see I have quite a lot of graining, especially at the rear which made the exit of it [Portier] and the entry to the tunnel quite difficult to get close and to get past," added Sainz. "A couple of times I was really close to launching a move into there but it was still a bit wet on the inside and Checo was braking quite late. I think if I would have braked any later I would have taken taken him out."
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