Sainz reveals critical brake fire concern

Carlos Sainz feared the dramatic brake fire on his Ferrari would prematurely end his São Paulo Grand Prix.

The Spaniard recovered from a grid penalty to finish third at Interlagos, completing a late-race move on Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

But Sainz was in peril early on in the race after his brakes caught fire on lap 18.

Starting on the alternate medium tyres, Sainz picked up a visor tear-off in his rear-left brake duct, forcing an early switch from a two-stop to three-stop strategy.

The fire intensified briefly when at a standstill, before taking the best part of his out lap before finally subsiding.

Asked if his recovery to the podium was one of his most satisfying results in F1, Sainz answered: "Yeah, definitely.

"Especially because I think it has been a very solid weekend with a few setbacks like the penalty and the tear-off stuck in my brake duct that nearly caused me to retire.

"I had a brake on fire so thought it was pretty much over.

"Also, having to commit to a three-stop so early, I thought this was not going to be the right strategy, but for me from that point onwards it felt like I just had to push flat-out to the end and see where this took me.

"The good thing is that we managed to recover a lot of pace. We were very fast. We going to challenge Checo [Perez] towards the end with this comeback and to finally get the podium was a really good feeling."

Sainz dropped initially out of podium contention with his problem after returning to the track in 12th, alongside Williams driver Alex Albon and out of pit stop sequence compared to his rivals.

"There were issues for one or two laps before where I think we overheated the brakes and this also made the tyre overheat," he added.

"I was also suffering a lot also with concentration and keeping the car in the right place.

"Then we boxed. The pit stop, because of that, was probably a bit slow. It forced us into a three-stop. But once we stopped, everything was good to push.

"We had a decent stint on the soft having to pass a lot of people but then the race really came alive when I put the new medium on again in the middle of the race and here is where I could do some good lap times and get myself back in the race."

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