Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz: A podium could come at any race

Barcelona, May 5 (EFE).- Ferrari’s Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz on Wednesday said that his maiden podium appearance for the Italian team “could come at any race” and talked about his positive outlook at the beginning of his first season with the Scuderia.

 “If the front four fail and you are the first of the rest, which is our intention to be there, just behind Mercedes and Red Bull this year, we can catch a podium,” Sainz said during an interview with Efe ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

“That possibility is always there and I hope it comes as soon as possible,” said the Spaniard, who joined the Italian team this season on a two-year contract, replacing Sebastian Vettel.

The adaptation process is going “better perhaps than the points show.” Sainz has bagged 14 points from the first three races of the year to hold the eighth spot in the driver standings.

“I feel very integrated, a part of the team, but races like Portimao show that there is still work to be done to understand each other better and race better,” Sainz said.

He was referring to a miscommunication that resulted a bad tyre strategy and saw him end the Portugal Grand Prix in P11.

Heading into this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, one of his favorite tracks, he will be hoping for “a good race” that enables him “to go forward.”

“This weekend we have to try to get a good qualifying again and try not to have the same thing happen to us in the race. In Portimao, there was clear potential to claim a fifth or sixth in the race and we couldn’t do it,” he said.

He will have to do without the support of his fans, which “takes away a lot of incentive and a lot of fun.”

“The home Grand Prix is a Grand Prix where the driver is very busy, we have many things to do, but the energy that the public transmits to you and especially my stands, which I usually have at Turn 5, is an energy that you do not have in another Grand Prix,” he added.