Sainz began the race in fourth position, next to Lando Norris from McLaren. He briefly took the lead at Suzuka by delaying his second pit stop and staying out longer on medium tires.
However, this strategy initially made him lose track of position as his teammate Charles Leclerc, Norris, and both Mercedes cars of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton got ahead of him after their pit stops.
But with 17 laps left, Sainz switched to hard tires, which were much newer compared to those of the drivers in front. This allowed him to move up through the field.
Even with this advantage, Sainz didn’t think he could make it to the podium until he noticed how fast he was going on the hard tires.
“I was hopeful of achieving a podium that in the end we managed to achieve, even if it was a very tough race, very strategic,” the Spaniard explained.
“The track conditions changed a lot through the race. We went from a very sunny track that we hadn’t had a weekend to a very cloudy track.
“The degradation went down a lot and you could push a lot more on the tyres halfway through the race.
“This changed the whole situation quite a lot. At one point, I thought the podium wasn’t possible. But then with the new hard [tires], the pace was mega and I could get back onto the podium.”
Sainz didn’t expect to match his performance in the Australian Grand Prix, where he looked competitive even before Max Verstappen’s early retirement.
But he remained confident in Ferrari’s race pace, especially as the gap between them and the leading Red Bulls widened, knowing that Suzuka’s layout favored Red Bull’s strengths.
“We kind of knew our race pace was better than our qualifying pace,” Sainz added. “Still probably not enough to go for a win, because obviously starting P4, and given how good the race pace of the Red Bull is, it’s almost impossible to think about a win.”