The Italian outfit went into the race four points shy of Mercedes, but while Charles Leclerc took second place behind Max Verstappen, his team-mate Sainz failed to log any points.
With George Russell earning third and Lewis Hamilton taking ninth, the Brackley team stayed in front by three points.
After a frustrating Q1 session saw Sainz qualify 16th, Ferrari put the Spaniard on hard tyres at the start. However, he lacked pace and the team stopped him earlier than planned and gave him a second set of the same compound.
He was thus committed to a second pit visit for mediums, and the team left him out until the last minute in the hope that a safety car would give him a cheap stop.
In the end that chance didn’t come and Sainz came into the pits on the penultimate lap, and having dropped out of the points he was officially retired with what the team indicated was an engine problem.
Vasseur said the strategy wasn’t to blame for his poor race and that Sainz, who had a big crash in FP2, was simply missing pace.
“When you have to pit on lap 20, you have no other option than to put on a second set of hards because if you put on mediums, you will have to pit on lap 30,” he said.
Source: Autosport