Sainz says Toro Rosso's pitstops "not good enough"
Carlos Sainz was left frustrated by the slow speed of his Toro Rosso team’s pitstops during the Monaco Grand Prix, which he feels robbed him of a better result.
The Spaniard ended the Monte Carlo race in eighth place, two spots down from his grid position after losing ground switching firstly from wet tyres to intermediates and then later to slicks.
"Honestly there were a lot more points on the table for us," said Sainz. "But every time we did a pitstop we exit two places behind, so not happy at all.
"Perez showed that [we could have done much better], he was behind us before the first pitstop and he ended up third, and we ended up eighth. It's not good enough."
Sainz held sixth throughout a wet first stint, but was leapfrogged by Sergio Perez at his first stop on Lap 21, and was also passed by Fernando Alonso in the second pitstop phase.
"The first pitstop, when we stopped for intermediates, we had a gap of more than 21 seconds with Vettel," recalled the Toro Rosso driver.
"I was pushing for three laps, he was stuck behind [Felipe] Massa. But there was a bit of trouble with the front-right wheel, we lost three or four seconds there.
"Then the team didn't risk an unsafe release with the Force India [of Perez], which passed us."
He added: "Also in the second pitstop we left just behind [Nico] Rosberg, he was doing a very slow out-lap, being very cautious, and Fernando did an extra lap and exited in front of us.
"A real shame, because the pace was there to do something good. The strategy was the right one, we pitted when we had to pit, but things in the pitlane didn't go as they should've done."
Race pace
Sainz insisted his race pace was a match for anyone bar Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo, although he stopped shy of accusing his team of denying him a possible podium finish.
"I think only the two leaders were faster than us today," he said. "As soon as I got clean air when everyone stopped, we had an incredible pace.
"It was just in the moments that mattered, the two pitstops, we didn't do the right things at the right time and we exited the box behind where we should have been.
"Today could've been… I don't think a podium, Checo has done a good job also, but something more than a P8 after such a strong weekend."
Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov
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