Carlos Sainz says his clash with Max Verstappen saved him from a “more dramatic” day in the Bahrain Grand Prix, as he believes a gearbox problem would have cost him a points finish anyway.

“I’m trying to look at the positives,” said Sainz. “A good start, a good first lap, the cars in front weren’t opening the gap and I could stay with the top six without problems.

“Then I don’t think we would have finished in the points because my gearbox failed all throughout the race.

“We had a gearbox problem that was making us lose almost a second per lap, so if I had overtaken Verstappen I would have been fifth and then suddenly I would have had the gearbox problem, then it would have been even more dramatic.”

When asked if he felt he had the pace to be on the podium, he said: “I prefer not to think about it.”

Sainz labelled his clash with Verstappen as “racing”, but said the Dutchman had hit him very hard.