Ferrari Formula 1 boss Frederic Vasseur has hailed how Carlos Sainz managed a “difficult” situation in the Monaco Grand Prix to help team-mate Charles Leclerc win.
Sainz had mentioned that he would strive to do what he could to help protect Leclerc’s pole position and the Spaniard almost beat Oscar Piastri to second at the start.
However, Piastri held his McLaren round the outside at Turn 1 to maintain his starting place and minute contact between the pair saw Sainz incur a front-left puncture.
But a collision at the back meant Sauber’s Zhou Guanue hadn’t passed Safety Car line 2 and thus allowed Sainz to be reinstated to third under the subsequent red flag.
Asked whether he endured a rollercoaster of emotions seeing Sainz come to a halt and then getting promoted back up to third, Vasseur: “From the pit wall, not exactly.
“Because we didn’t see the crash behind and we are focused on the discussion with Carlos to understand exactly what’s happened, if he can restart the car and so on.
“And then we saw the red flag, but I didn’t see that we had another crash.
“It means that in this kind of situation you are always only focused on your car. You don’t think about the global picture. For sure it was good news when they told us that all the cars didn’t cross the Safety Car line and they have to do the sector one line and they have to consider the position of the Safety Car line too.”
Sainz would maintain third place on the resumption with Lando Norris situated behind as the leading quartet settled into a slow pace to preserve their tyres to the end.
But with the cars behind on the Medium compound doing even more management, Sainz was instructed to ensure that McLaren couldn’t utilise making a free pit stop.
Vasseur has admitted the Spaniard was placed in a troublesome predicament as he was being instructed to pressurise Piastri but also not allow Norris the gap to pit.
“Carlos, it was even more difficult because we asked him to stay not too far away from Piastri to cover a potential Safety Car but also to slow down Norris for Russell,” he said.
“It was more controlling the race than pushing. It was a bit frustrating for them because a couple of times they asked in the radio, ‘Can I push?’
“But it was not at all our interest. I’m more than pleased with the job that they did today.”
Sainz conceded he was fortunate that the incident involving Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and the two Haas cars provided him with the chance to rescue his eventual podium.
“As soon as I exit Turn 1, I could feel the puncture,” Sainz highlighted.
“And yeah, it looked like my race was over there at one point. And then I was really lucky to get the P3 back and race from there the rest of the race.”
