Carlos Sainz has claimed that Ferrari's pace was comparable to that of Red Bull during Sunday's Styrian Grand Prix. Sainz himself managed to climb from P12 on the grid to eventually finish 6th, with his teammate, Charles Leclerc, coming home in P7. The Monegasque's finish was even more remarkable, as Leclerc ended the first lap with a damaged front-wing after contact with Pierre Gasly. "Yes, I felt really strong right from the beginning when we were on the medium tyres and the others started to pit," Sainz told RacingNews365 and other selected members of the media. "We managed to overcut pretty much the whole midfield, showing really good pace, pretty much very similar to the Red Bulls today, so very, very surprised with that. "We managed to put ourselves into contention for P5 after starting P12 but unfortunately after a pit stop I came out behind Lewis. To try and unlap myself and by the time I cleared him – I didn’t know I would say this, but I overtook Lewis – I was too late to catch Lando and my tyres were a bit too finished. But today the pace was definitely positive," he explained. Sainz went on to finish seven seconds behind Norris, despite having started outside the top 10 while Norris started third. Nevertheless, he did warn that Ferrari are still wrestling with the issues that saw them finish outside of the points in France one week prior. "It is unfortunately at the moment track specific; the car is very similar to Paul Ricard and we haven’t really found a solution for the reasons for our Paul Ricard struggles," the 26-year-old added. "So we expect our race pace to swing up and down depending on the circuit until we really find the reason why of what happened to us at Paul Ricard."
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