Sainz: The win was there for the taking

It was decent weekend for the Spaniard, as he was consistently close to his teammate Charles Leclerc in terms of pace evident from him qualifying second behind the Monegasque.

On race day however, Ferrari were at their stumbling best, messing up the strategy for both drivers, in terms of the tyres for Leclerc, while throwing Sainz in the middle of traffic on his out lap killing his chances to take his first Formula 1 career win, a prospect which was highly likely on Sunday's chaotic Monaco race.

"It was a tough race but overall I cannot be too disappointed," said Sainz in Ferrari's press release. "We made the right call to go from wet tyres to slicks but unfortunately a lapped car in my out-lap cost me too much time and we missed the opportunity to take the lead.

"After my pit stop I rejoined right behind Perez and that was it," he added. "Overtaking here is extremely challenging and with some wet patches off the racing line it was even more difficult today.

"It is a tough one to digest, because the win was there for the taking, but I gave it my all out there and we’ll come back stronger as a team for the next double header," the 27-year-old from Madrid concluded.

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto admitted that poor decision were taken by the team's pit wall, and lamented throwing away the front-row start for both their cars.

"When you start with your two cars on the front row and you don’t win, it means something went wrong from our side," he said. "I think we made a few poor decisions and we paid the price.

"There were other elements that affected today’s result, such as the traffic that both our drivers encountered when they rejoined the track after their pit stops, a factor that probably cost Carlos the win.

"Mistakes can happen, but it’s important to learn from them and take it as an opportunity to improve," Binotto insisted.

"Over the next few days, we will analyse this race in detail, as part of our preparation for the upcoming back-to-back races in Azerbaijan and Canada," the Swiss-born Italian concluded.

Ferrari lodged two protests at the end of the race at Monaco claiming Max Verstappen and race winner Sergio Perez violated the Race Director's notes regarding the pit exit that mandate keeping the car on the right side of the yellow line that marks the exit.

Both protests were dismissed by the Stewards.