A good race for Carlos Sainz. Yesterday the Ferrari driver struggled during the qualifying session, not even managing to get through Q2 and placing the car in p11. This afternoon, however, had a chance to redeem himself under the Imola rain, and, regardless of some mistakes, scored an impressive p5, ending the race just behind his teammate.

The Spanish driver was satisfied with his performance, especially since it was the first time for him driving his new car under the rain, as he said during the F1 post-race interviews: "Today in the wet… it was my first time ever putting a wet tyre on this car and I had no idea what the car was going to do. I went out, I started pushing the car, they told me the lap times, they told me I was one of the quickest guys out there."

New conditions, however, are always challenging, and some uncertainty is physiological. “But at the same time I was doing my mistakes and finding my feet, so I was doing a bit of a test session in the wet, you know? I had fun, I must say I enjoyed it, but at the same time I was quite frustrated with it”

All in all, he's quite happy with his final result and his decision of "taking more risks" than he did during his first race with Ferrari, considering his starting place and the fact that he went out in the gravel twice:

"Yeah, all things considered I think P5 is a good result for me. Obviously taking into account that I was starting 11th, first time in the wet with this car so I had a lot of things to discover. But this time I decided to take some risks. I said in Bahrain that I decided to take it easy; today, in the wet, I said ‘OK, I’m going to go for it.' I made a few places there, I went from 11th to eighth, and struggled to find my feet after that."

Sainz's main issue during the race was to find the "right feeling" with all the car parts: “I was trying a lot of different brake balances, the right brake balance for each corner, the right feeling with the brake pedal in the car. I missed a couple of corners there that cost me quite a lot of race time."

He still was able to compensate for his mistakes by going faster and pushing hard, scoring a fifth-place and improving both his previous Ferrari performance, which had seen him ending the Bahrein Gp in p8, and his last season Imola placement a p7 with McLaren: “I was nevertheless so quick out there that I could recover it. I was making mistakes but at the same time pushing and getting that time back,” he concluded.

De P11 a P5! Primera vez en agua con Ferrari, he arriesgado en la salida para ganar 4 puestos y he buscado el límite, con muy buen ritmo! También muy rápido en seco, estoy contento. Aún en progreso, pero en buena dirección. Ambos coches con puntos hoy!

👉https://t.co/COzPUhjuMn pic.twitter.com/hW4jrwGG5t

— Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) April 18, 2021