Sainz survived early contact with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon at the Nouvelle Chicane with minor front wing damage to keep the podium in sight through the opening half of the race.
On lap 33 of 78, Ocon suffered a slow stop as he switched to fresh mediums, with Ferrari opting to pit Sainz on the following tour in an attempt to utilise the overcut and cover off Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who was eighth after his first trip to the pits.
But the strategy backfired, and Sainz dropped failed to pass Ocon, before falling further back – much to the Ferrari driver’s ire.
“What the f***! This is exactly what I talked about,” he raged to his team on the radio, adding “I don’t care about Hamilton” when told about the reason for his stop.
Commenting on his race afterwards, Sainz felt his pace was such that Ferrari should have been more patient with its strategy call - particularly as he was using the harder rubber.
“We had a bit of an eventful race always chasing Ocon and on the gearbox of Ocon,” he said when asked about his grand prix by Autosport.
“I saved my tyres well, the hard tyres, and it looked like he had a slow pitstop and I was flying on the in-lap and we decided to go for the overcut.
“Probably, given the pace I was showing, maybe we could've been a bit more patient but it's how it is.”
Source: Autosport