Sainz: I would've done it the same again

Ferrari asked Sainz to give teammate Charles Leclerc a space of ten car lengths after the Safety Car restart at the end of last weekend's race at Silverstone, to give the Monegasque a chance to speed away, as the team failed to pit him for fresh tyres like all the other frontrunners including Sainz.

The Spaniard however argued his case and stuck with his opinion, overtaking his teammate and speeding away in the distance to take his first Formula 1 career win, one day after taking his maiden pole.

Asked if he regretted his decision, Sainz told the media on Thursday of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend: "Well, Ferrari won, I won so for sure it was not the wrong decision.

"I think at that time, in the car, I did perfectly know what I had to do in order to don't put Charles in a compromised position but also to give Ferrari a race win, that is what the team cares the most about.

"And I think everything I did was sensible, at the end I didn't put Charles under unnecessary risk or pressure while overtaking him, knowing that I was going to overtake him fairly easily on the soft, pulled away, won the race for Ferrari and I think it was a good outcome in the end.

"So yeah, I would have done it the same again," Sainz insisted, "and I think the team perfectly understood my position.

"That's why they didn't call again for the ten car lengths because they knew that what I had argued during the radio comment was totally valid also," he reasoned.

There was much talk about tension within Ferrari after the race, something Leclerc denied, and Sainz echoed his teammate's sentiments in Thursday's press conference.

"It was a relatively short briefing because we had to leave to the airport and take the group picture," he said of the post race brief and activities. "I think Charles had the anti-doping control so we couldn't share the briefing together.

"But like always he behaved like gentleman like he is and the briefing went normally like the way it should go," the 27-year old from Madrid revealed.

"The way it goes when I have a bad race is also a normal briefing and the way it goes when he has a bad race is a normal briefing.

"It's one of the strong points that we have as teammates and as drivers and as a team spirit that we have in Ferrari, and these things are always under control," Sainz maintained.