Carlos Sainz reacts to “frustrating” Bahrain GP retirement after best start of the season

Carlos Sainz retired from the Bahrain Grand Prix due to excessive damage to the sidepod of his Williams FW46.

The Spanish driver had contact with Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda which created a sizeable hole in the sidepod of Sainz’s car. Despite the Williams driver calling for the stewards to investigate Tsunoda for the incident, they later confirmed that no further action would be taken.

Sainz continued with the race, but ultimately retired on lap 47. Reflecting on the difficulties during the race, Sainz commented:

“Yeah, we had some good fights out there today. At the same time, you know, after a really good start, I felt like I was always fighting cars that were just those 2,3 tenths quicker per lap than us, and this makes you want to stay with them, catch their DRS, use a bit more of your tyre and start going backwards once you try to do that.

“So a bit of a frustrating situation to be in with Lewis, Kimi, and I think Yuki at the time, but I gave it a good shot trying to stay up with them, and yeah, it seemed like we could at one point, but then started degging.

“On the 2nd stint, I recovered some good pace on mediums once we all went into new tyres, and I was going to get Yuki back.

“I did actually do a good move into turn one and then exiting turn one, I think he lost the rear and touched my sidepod with a big snap that he had to catch, and that was a race over for me because I lost 40, 50 points of load, and that makes you a second and a half slower.”

Prior to his retirement, Sainz was hit with a ten-second penalty for forcing Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli off the track at turn 10 after the safety car restart. When quizzed on the incident, Sainz explained:

“Yeah, this was just the heat of the moment with fighting for positions after the safety car restart with a cold hard [tyre] and no downforce in the car, I just locked up and went a bit wide, and I was trying to let him by, but then there was Alex, so I decided to let by Alex, knowing that he’s my team-mate. And resulted in a 10-second penalty.”

Looking at the positives which he can take from the weekend, the 30-year-old added:

“Good quali, good start, already a couple of good starts in a row with this car, good attacking first lap, decent pace. The Alpine was too big for us this weekend.

“And when you have the top eight cars plus the two Alpines, that’s top 10 positions, and I was there between P1 and P10 fighting for my life, but yeah, we were just not quite quick enough, but again, first two stints a lot to learn from again, good start, good quality, so we’re in the right trajectory.

“The weekends will come a bit more together hopefully, and at the same time we have this little bit to improve on the car to see if we can catch Gasly and Doohan with the Alpines because this weekend they seem to be on the other league than more than in our league.”