marmer wrote: ↑19 Nov 2019, 00:40
With how the race turned out I am not surprised we didn't see him much. I am guessing he made most of his progress up the grid by passing slower cars quickly like the Williams then getting lucky on strategy with the safety cars. You can't complain about not seeing his race when it wasn't until after the race we found out he finished 3rd.
Under normal circumstances he would have only finished 5th with just gasley Infront of him good but not shocking. Take the 3 dnf out and 8th doesn't sound epic either just ok decent strategy
I really disagree with the idea that Sainz got lucky. In fact it could be said that it is the opposite. When you are doing one stopper, having a safety car that allows two stoppers to get on your back is not being lucky, it's the opposite. Sainz not only wasn't lucky with the safety car, he had to defend on safety car restart twice and one of those times was at the end of the race when his tires were at their worst.
Sainz would have been lucky if he managed to do his only stop during the safety car period (something which didn't happen). For example, Norris was lucky as he was unable to do one stopper, so he opted to pit for fresh tires during the safety car, without the safety car Norris probably wouldn't be in the points.
Sainz was as lucky as anyone else in the midfield by having two Ferrari's take each other out, Bottas blow an engine and Albon/Hamilton colliding.
This is why I think that this podium is an incredible achievement, it wasn't lucky gamble with softs in Germany, it wasn't a lucky safety car that saved you 20 seconds in the pitstop, it was a hard fought battle with his single pitstop done during green flag conditions which allowed him to get a P3 after 5 drivers from top 3 teams fell back.