When the Grand Prix got under way, it was Leclerc who made the strongest of starts from fourth to slip past Sainz and squabbling championship rivals Verstappen and Lando Norris at Turn 1, taking the lead and never looking back.
Sainz emerged from the first corner just behind Verstappen in P3 but, having briefly challenged the reigning world champion, lost valuable time when problems developed aboard his car – the Spaniard at one stage smelling fuel in the cockpit.
He got a handle on the situation via some engine map instructions from the Ferrari pit wall, with a relatively early stop to swap medium tyres for hards also enabling Sainz to undercut Verstappen and assume a net second position.
However, any hopes Sainz had of challenging Leclerc for the win had effectively been dashed, with the latter returning to the track from his sole stop several seconds clear and expertly managing the situation to the chequered flag.
Asked for his overriding emotion post-race and whether he viewed the outcome as a good result, or a potential race win gone begging, Sainz replied: “A mix of both, no?
“First of all, I’m incredibly happy for the team and the team effort, getting a one-two and so many points for the constructors’ – I think that’s priority number one. Congratulations to Charles, obviously, for a great drive.
“From my side, I feel like I’ve been very quick all weekend, I’ve been on it, I’ve been doing everything I could to win this race. Unfortunately, we got a bit blocked at the start, then we had a couple of issues during the first stint with the power unit.
“Even though I was very quick on the hards, and I was the first to pit, I just lost too much time at the beginning and I couldn’t get it back. But I’ll take the positives and keep fighting.”
Sainz ‘lost too much time at the beginning’ with PU issue to challenge for win
Indeed, Sainz took plenty of encouragement out of Ferrari’s display in Austin as the team – on a more traditional circuit – seemingly took a significant step towards confirming that recent updates have worked.
“We’ve been definitely on a very good set-up from the beginning,” said Sainz. “I felt really comfortable with the car right from the beginning. It’s good to see, because in these sorts of tracks we were expecting to struggle a bit more.
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