We had a good start, I managed the tire quite well.
We made the pit stop early to put pressure on the others, but at the end of the race it was difficult with the tire. "Charles Leclerc comments on his sixth place at the Bahrain GP, the first race of the 2021 World Championship." pace - explains the Monegasque - is better than 2020, even if we are not where we would like in terms of position, but every improvement is excellent for Ferrari.
Here I always struggle to manage the race due to the heat, but it is a step forward compared to last year.
McLaren surprised us, they were competitive in the past few days, but they hadn't shown these good things and this pace.
It is a good starting point, even historically we have never done very well here on this circuit.
It was a positive start, but there is still a lot of work to do. "
A positive restart after the troubles of 2020 for Ferrari: "We are the third force in the championship - said Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto - we fought with McLaren, we need to improve but it's a good start".
For Carlos Sainz on his absolute debut aboard Ferrari "the pace of the SF21 is very good. The bad start is the fault of the lack of feeling, I wanted to do all the laps and not risk going out - explained Sainz - I made a mistake in the I also start with clutch and gears, after the first lap I was calmer to get to know the car in the wind and dirty air. When I was in clean air I took my pace and I was fast, so I'm happy. Ferrari is very good, better than I expected. Especially with medium and hard I was very fast. Too bad for that first lap, otherwise I would have been closer to the McLarens. At that point I was too far behind. I know that eighth is not special. , but looking at the data there will be things to be very happy about. I wasn't in attack mode today, there will be time to do it. "