Carlos Sainz believes his Grand Prix was compromised by Ferrari's decision to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car that followed Nico Hulkenberg's retirement.

The VSC was deployed as the German pulled to the side of the track, with Hamilton, Norris, Gasly, Albon, Russell, Ocon, Piastri and Sargeant all taking the opportunity to pit.

Next time around it was the turn of the Ferraris and Aston Martins.

Sainz, who had been running third, behind Verstappen and Leclerc, believes that the decision to double stack the Ferraris compromised his race. Indeed, before the call he had been hard on the heels of his teammate and had suggested to the team that his pace was better.

However, while Leclerc had been able to maintain his second place during the stop, Sainz had dropped to sixth.

"I was very quick on the first and second stint," said the Spaniard. "Obviously, the second stint was already compromised by the first stop, pitting behind Charles and catching the virtual safety car ending, which made me lose six-seven seconds of race time.

"It made me lose positions to cars that I shouldn't have lost," he continued, "which meant I then had to push on the medium to overtake them, and get the track limits penalty.

"My race was compromised from that point onwards," he insisted. "But if I look at the pace, I was very quick out there.

"I'm just frustrated," he admitted. "It's been a few races that I have a lot of pace in the car. I wish I could maximise it a bit more because I'm very quick this year, especially in the race. I feel like I've done a big step forward. But P4 I guess is not bad, but I think today P2 or P3 was on the cards.

"I'm very happy with my performance today. I think I did some very clean, neat moves. I defended well. As soon as I was arriving to one car, I was passing them.

"I was managing my tyres well at the same time that I was attacking. That's why I guess I'm frustrated right now because I struggle to see the positive on this P4 with all the pace and overtaking and defending that I did.

"Clearly I'm in a good moment personally with my with my driving so that's why I guess I'm also frustrated that I'm not maximising the points."

Unfortunately a post-race penalty saw Sainz slip to sixth.

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