Puzzled Sainz 'never felt so slow in a race' than in Dutch GP

Carlos Sainz was at a loss to explain his depressed pace in Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, despite concluding his race in seventh position.

For most of the afternoon, the Ferrari driver held his own in sixth position where he had qualified, but from the outset, the Spaniard was unable to keep up with teammate Charles Leclerc, clocking in at the checkered flag over thirty seconds behind the Monegasque after losing P6 to Fernando Alonso on the penultimate lap.

"I am very puzzled at the moment because I had no pace at all during the race since Lap 1," explained a frustrated Sainz after his race.

"I honestly didn't enjoy it at all. I was in the whole race sliding around, really had zero pace in the car today, didn't feel at home with it compared to the rest of the weekend.

"For some reason, I was very far away, in terms of feeling at home with the car.

"Really I was struggling a lot with the front and tyres. I was degrading the tyres, it felt like I was sliding a lot and I couldn’t match the pace I had on Friday.

“This means we need to look into what went wrong because I have never felt so slow in a race, to be honest."

• Read also - Leclerc: P4 on the cards in Dutch GP with better qualifying

Sainz just couldn't wrap his head around the reasons why his SF21's behaviour had changed overnight, and the Spaniard vowed to get to the bottom of the issue.

"It's something to analyse because this is the first time it has happened this year where I really don't find myself and I spend the whole race sliding and struggling for pace

"In qualie the car was very well balanced, and I really enjoyed the driving. But for some reason in the race, from lap2, lap 3 it all went backwards, and I started skidding and I couldn't keep up the pace. It was very very strange.

"A tricky one and let's hope we can find what happened for next weekend. I'm pretty sure there was something going on that I need to look into."

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