Leclerc and Sainz lined up sixth and seventh respectively, but both lost positions to Mercedes driver George Russell and Haas man Nico Hulkenberg as they passed each other in Shanghai’s first corner complex.
Sainz was pushed wide into turn 2 by an understeering Leclerc, who visibly struggled to get his tires up to temperature, further illustrated by a huge moment for the Monegasque in the second sector.
While Hülkenberg was easy prey for both, Russell proved more difficult to solve. Leclerc finally overtook him on lap 9, while Sainz had to wait for the Briton to enter the pits before being released into the open until the mid-race safety car.
“It was a bit of a crazy race. What we did at the start cost me and Charles one or two positions and that cost us dearly in the race,” Sainz said of the intra-race battle. team at the Spanish channel DAZN.
“Then we tried to follow the Mercedes, we tried to pass him but he stopped and then we stopped, we put the hard tires on very early.
“In the last stint I had to ride for a very long time, but we still managed to hold on to fifth place, which I think was the most we could do.”
Ferrari was tipped to do well in Shanghai, but that did not prove to be the case as it struggled to find pace on the harder Pirelli compound.
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“Honestly we weren’t very fast this weekend, when you qualify sixth and seventh there’s not a lot of pace in the car,” Sainz said.
“In the race we expected to be better but we weren’t, so it was clearly the circuit where we suffered the most.
“We need to check if we have done everything we can with the settings and if not, it is time to work on the car because this type of circuit did not go well for us.”
“I just focused on getting to the end and making sure Russell didn’t pass me on fresh tires, and we managed to do that.”
Earlier in the weekend, Leclerc felt Sainz “crossed the line a bit” by defending his position to his teammate in the sprint race, before saying the matter had been resolved internally.
Sainz is F1’s highest-profile free agent in the 2025 driver market as he is expected to leave Ferrari at the end of the season following the signing of Lewis Hamilton by the Scuderia.
