he passed Palmer to take ninth.īahrain – Sainz would have started ahead of Verstappen if he’d been able to replicate his Q1 lap time in Q2. He would have had a good chance of beating the Williams had the race run its course without the interruption, instead his late pit stop dropped him towards the lower reaches of the points. This was the lowest point in what was otherwise a remarkable second year of F1 for Sainz.Īustralia – A tenth off Verstappen in Q3, Sainz held his position at the start but made a very early first pit stop, undercutting Massa to pass the Williams. Austin was arguably his best drive of the year, where he secured another sixth place.Ĭar problems were his only cause of retirements all year, though he did crash out of qualifying in Canada. Yet Sainz continued to drag the car into Q3 and pull off surprise results. More car problems thwarted his efforts in Belgium (puncture) and Singapore (MGU-K), where he qualified a strong sixth.īy the latter stages of the season Toro Rosso had been out-developed by several of their rivals. Despite a power unit failure in Austria he climbed eleven places to finish eighth at a track which was far from ideal for Toro Rosso. In Monaco Sainz grabbed a spot on the third row but slow pit stops dropped him back to eighth at the flag. And that crushing margin could easily have been greater. Once Kvyat arrived Sainz showed his new team mate no mercy, out-scoring him by 42 points to 4.
It didn’t help matters that in two of those four races he was hit by other drivers.
Sainz held his head up well against Verstappen during their brief spell as team mates at the start of the year. On home ground Sainz held third in the opening laps, fought the Ferraris and delivered an excellent sixth. Indeed while Max Verstappen took a shock victory first time out for Red Bull, his former team mate was also enjoying his best race to date.
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