Carlos Sainz was given a new nickname ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, by ex-Formula 1 driver turned pundit Martin Brundle.
Brundle was busy conducting his traditional grid walk when he came across the Ferrari driver on the grid, who he called “Carlito”.
The nickname caught Sainz by surprise, although he seemed to approve of it.
“A quick chat here with Carlito,” Brundle said on Sky Sports F1, as he approached the Ferrari driver.
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“What did you call me?” Sainz asked whilst smiling, before Brundle clarified the nickname.
Sainz went on to discuss how he felt about the race ahead, and how he was targeting to “have a bit of fun”.
“I’m confident that at least we can have a bit of fun today,” Sainz said.
“Looking forward to the whole race, trying to get some positions. But at the same time it’s going to be warm. it’s going to be hard on tyres and that’s where we struggle a bit so we need to be thinking both ways.”
Sainz started the race in 11th after being eliminated in Q2, as a result of Charles Leclerc improving on his final lap.
Leclerc had been in the bottom five as he started his final lap in Q2, with his lap having been good enough for a place in Q3 but at the expense of Sainz.
Sainz made up for his poor qualifying by making an excellent start to the race, which saw him make five places on the opening lap.
He quickly found himself right behind his team-mate, before he momentarily moved ahead of the Monegasque.
The pair swapped positions following both pit-stops, whilst both drivers were overtaken by Sergio Perez and George Russell (Leclerc had a five-second time penalty which dropped him behind Russell at the end of the race).
Ferrari’s race pace ultimately just wasn’t good enough, with Leclerc and Sainz having finished the race seventh and eighth.
The Italians were again fourth in the pecking order, a position which is starting to frustrate Sainz and Leclerc.
Sainz admitted after the race that the team’s 2023 car has “so much potential”, but that their rivals are out-developing them.
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“We finished exactly where our level is: in seventh and eighth place,” said Sainz after the race, as reported by the Hungarian edition of Motorsport.com.
“Like at Silverstone. Unfortunately, we have so much potential, our rivals are more developed than us.
“The SF-23 has some bugs that we can’t fix, especially on tracks with long corners.”