Sainz considered giving compatriot DRS in battle with Hamilton

The disqualification of Sebastian Vettel allowed Carlos Sainz to add his second podium for Ferrari to his record. The Spaniard officially finished fourth, but thanks to Aston Martin's mistake he managed to move up a place. Together with his compatriot Fernando Alonso he managed to give Hamilton a hard time in the final stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

DRS

In conversation with Motorsportweek.com Sainz even indicates that he considered playing cahoots with Alonso with regards to defending against Hamilton. "Yes, of course I considered that," Sainz said when asked if he was thinking about giving Alonso DRS. "Of course we are racers and we consider any kind of scenario to stay ahead."

Due to a confluence of circumstances, Sainz decided not to take his chances in the end. "What you guys probably don't know is that I had to save a lot of fuel. I was also quite weak in the last corner because I was struggling a bit with the tyres towards the end. And the combination of saving fuel in Turn 1 and being weak in the last corner meant I ended up making the decision not to risk my position with Fernando."

Strategy

"We'll never know if I made the right choice, but how I thought about it at the time, my feeling was to play it safe and try to pull away from Fernando to make sure I could do fuel conservation and thus Lewis would need more time to catch me," Sainz explained his strategy.