Monza podium only made me more excited for Ferrari future, says Sainz

Carlos Sainz landed his second career podium at an unforgettable italian Grand Prix last weekend and is now looking forward to repeating the feat with Ferrari when he moves there from McLaren in 2021 – hopefully with the tifosi cheering him on.

The Spaniard was gutted not to have won the Italian Grand Prix having come so close – he was just 0.415s off race winner Pierre Gasly at the chequered flag – but said making the top three inspired it made him to score more podiums with the Scuderia, the team he’ll join in 2021 as Charles Leclerc’s team mate.

The Spaniard was gutted not to have won the Italian Grand Prix having come so close – he was just 0.415s off race winner Pierre Gasly at the chequered flag – but said making the top three at Ferrari's home track has simply fired him up to repeated the feat when he joins the Scuderia next year.

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He said: “What I’m sure is today, if there would have been tifosi there, they would have been pretty happy and proud and that makes me excited about the future.

“And [I’m] a bit gutted that there was no one today down there, apart obviously from my team and everyone involved in Formula 1, but it makes me excited and makes me look forward to the future and hopefully it’s my first podium in Monza, not my last. And hopefully many will come with Ferrari.”

We saw just last year what it looks like when the tifosi see Ferrari win at home: Charles Leclerc took a second career win at Monza in 2019, and the podium celebrations were stunning. And Sainz is itching to experience that himself, once he makes the swap from McLaren to Maranello.

“I’m ready for it, I cannot wait for it to happen and I just cannot imagine what it would have been with 100,000 people. We get to finish on the podium in the coolest race of the season and no one is there to see us. Hopefully we will get it in the future. I think we all have the potential to do it again so let’s see,” he concluded.

There will be tifosi present at the next race, Ferrari’s 1,000th World Championship Grand Prix, with Mugello set to host the first Grand Prix of the 2020 season with spectators in the stands.