Carlos Sainz believes all the credit for his sixth-place showing in qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix is down to the Ferrari mechanics, as the team were able to get his car ready despite a big repair job after he crashed in practice. Sainz crashed his car at Turn 3 in FP3, and while a gearbox change wasn't required, the Scuderia didn't have much time to fix his car before qualifying. Nevertheless, they were able to repair Sainz's car for Q1, with the Ferrari driver noting that more focus should be placed on how special F1 mechanics are. "The result is purely thanks to the mechanics," Sainz told RacingNews365.com and other members of the media. "The car wasn't back until 20 minutes after the [FP3] session, which made everything even more pressed for time. "They've done an incredible job to put everything together and to allow me to go out. We sometimes talk a lot about Formula 1 drivers being very special, but Formula 1 mechanics are incredible, especially the guys today. They did an amazing [job]. "From there, it was obviously a high pressure, high tension moment in Q1 with the red flags, and lack of confidence in myself in the car. But I managed to build it up little by little and put a very strong lap in Q3 that nearly allowed me to qualify in the top five. "It was tricky, because I felt like I was always one or two sets of tyres behind, but in Q3 I went for it and it paid off." Sainz revealed that a small mistake ultimately caused his accident in FP3, as he missed the apex by just 20cm before crashing into the tyre barriers. "At the beginning, I didn't know what had happened," Sainz added. "Then I had a bit of an analysis, a bit of a cool-down in my head, and after what I've seen in quali, it's very clear now that centimetres offline there's clearly less grip than online, [as] there's a bit of sand. "I missed the apex by maybe 20cms in that lap, and I and you can see maybe that I pull up a bit of dust, and I think that is enough to create an accident at this circuit. "In terms of challenges, away from Monaco and Baku, I think this is biggest challenge of the season for the driver. I loved it. Even the accident, I felt like I deserved to crash, to be 20cms offline, because this is how a circuit should be."
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