Sainz 'always on the attack' after strong COTA Sprint performance

Carlos Sainz is aiming to attack during the United States GP as well, after a Sprint podium on Saturday.

After claiming his first Williams podium at Baku, the Spaniard once again finished inside the top three at the Sprint in Austin, Texas.

The Williams driver then couldn’t put himself as far up the grid as he did in Sprint Qualifying and will start from ninth place on Sunday.

Sainz talking to Max Verstappen after the Sprint - Photo: Race Pictures

After qualifying, he said: "We are P9 which is the average of the season, so it's not like we've been particularly quick here or anything.

"It's just we had a very solid lap yesterday at the sprint that put us in a good track position to then do something at the start and we finish P3."

The Spaniard looks ahead to the race with optimism. "I think what is important is that our race pace is always better than our qualifying pace. Again, I expect tomorrow hopefully to pick up a bit of pace in the race."

He continued: "Attacking always, yes. We always seem to be quicker in the race."

Sainz driving the Williams car at COTA - Photo: Race Pictures

Sainz expects ‘variety’ in strategies

The Williams driver also explained that he expects to see different approaches in terms of strategies.

He added: "There's going to be variety for once, I think [with the] one-stop, [there’s] a question mark over the hard tyre also. I think there's going to be one-stop, two-stop [with] hard tyres, so it's going to be interesting.

"Every softer compound seems to be giving you a lot of pace, so I don't know how that will stand up against the hard tomorrow, because it seems like [on] the softer the compound, the more grip there is and maybe on the hard you can slide a bit more than expected. But I’m not sure."

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