With two consecutive zeros, and two races that practically ended at the beginning, Carlos Sainz (Madrid, 27 years old) has been on the counter since the fifth grand prix of the season. At least he is one of the ‘local’ drivers in Miami, Spanish is spoken in the Latin capital of the world, and the next stop in the World Cup will be the home Grand Prix, strictly speaking. Good place, Miami, to turn around a start full of complications. Before getting in the car, the Ferrari driver talks to AS about what’s to come this weekend. He is fifth in the World Cup.
“Do you play local?”
—It seems, I don’t know if neutral or local. Many people speak Spanish in Miami and I feel the support, also from Real Madrid fans who celebrated the victory with me the other day. I love coming here.
—How do you recover from two races that have gone wrong, and from the 600 kilometers of competition that you have lost with respect to your rivals?
—The 600 kilometers hurt me more than the ‘zeroes’, because the kilometers are what make you learn about the car and this new regulation. I did a test in Ímola (on tyres, after the race) in which I also had a problem but we are recovering as best we can. It is part of the athlete’s life, there are always better and worse moments, the last two races have not been ideal, far from it, but we have also had a bit of bad luck. Now we want a clean weekend to try to recover.
—Madrid had it worse…
—Madrid had it worse, exactly, I have 19 races left. Madrid had five minutes left (laughs). It was amazing, I missed the last few minutes of chaos because I was in the middle of an event with Shell. It shows that until the last minute, nothing is decided.
—What do you think of the Miami circuit?
—Different, a different asphalt and curves of all kinds, it will be a new challenge for us in such heat. And the audience, incredible. The number of people who come to see us wanting to see Formula 1. People who have become fans of Formula 1 in recent years and people who come because otherwise it seems that they are missing the most famous event of recent years in USA. There is a bit of everything and I think we are going to have a good time.
