Not for the first time, perennial back marker Nicholas Latifi appears to have had a role in the outcome of a race result.

Hands up all those who held their breath when the Perez/Sainz/Verstappen/Leclerc train came up behind Nicholas Latifi is the closing stages of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Thankfully the Canadian got well out of the way, and the quartet were able to pass without losing any time or positions.

However, the man who brought about the infamous safety car in Abu Dhabi last December, may yet have had a role in the outcome of the Monaco race, for on-board footage reveals that it was the Canadian's Williams that cost Carlos Sainz precious time as he exited the pits following his pit stop.

The Spaniard had inherited the lead of the race when teammate, Charles Leclerc pitted on lap 18. Sainz was instructed to stop next time around but the Spaniard felt it best to remain on track to see if it was worth holding out for slicks.

Sure enough, he subsequently pitted on lap 21, and having switched to hards rejoined the race behind Latifi who was a lap down.

"I knew it from halfway through the first stint," said Sainz of his decision to switch to slicks. "I started to see the dry line and I started to realise that it was going to go straight to slicks.

"I felt like we did everything that we had to do out there," he continued. "We stayed patient on the wets, we took the right decision to go on to the slicks but a terrible out lap there stuck behind a lapped car cost me a race win today.

"Obviously the hard is never easy on the out lap," he admitted. "But I had to do 12 corners or something like that behind the lapped car that cost me at least a couple of seconds.

"You can understand the frustration because a clean out lap would have secured me the race win today," he insisted, the Spaniard having emerged from the chaotic stop ahead of his Ferrari teammate. "But it's how this sport is sometimes, it will turn around one day.

"I'm not going to complain too much, I know that this sport is like that," he smiled. "Checo was unlucky in Jeddah, today he did a great race."

Referring to his pursuit of Perez, who had flat-spotted his tyres at the restart, and was suffering severe degradation in the final stages of the race, he said: "You can see I have quite a lot of graining myself too, especially at the rear. That made the entry into the tunnel quite difficult to get close and to pass.

"A couple of times I was really close to launching a move into there," he added, referring to Portier, "but it was still a bit wet on the inside.

"Checo was braking quite late, so I think if I had braked any later I would have taken him out with me."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco, here.