Fifth place ‘expected’
“I honestly didn’t expect anything more. This is a McLaren or Red Bull circuit with medium-high speed corners and I knew that our strength lies elsewhere“this, in summary, was the comment of Carlos Sainz at the qualifying rounds of the Emilia-Romagna GP, which saw Ferrari ‘only’ earning the fourth and fifth position on the grid, with the Spaniard preceded by teammate Charles Leclerc. Both could move up a place later in the event of a penalty for Oscar Piastri, summoned by the stewards for an alleged impediment against Kevin Magnussen.
Pro-McLaren circuit
But Sainz didn’t appear particularly disappointed by the third row he scraped together on the trackdespite many imagining a Ferrari potentially competitive even for pole: “We are missing 2 or 3 tenths, which however are difficult to find with these regulations. We have brought an update package – explained the Madrilenian to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 – but we know that there are pro-McLaren or pro-Ferrari circuits and for me this is a pro-McLaren track“.
Problematic wind
“We have the problem that when the wind pushes us at the rear there are corners like 2 or 3 where our car struggles – Sainz underlined, thus confirming the words of Charles Leclerc – even at turn 7 today it was difficult. This shows that we need to improve some details with packages, but I think we can challenge for the podium tomorrow. For the victory we need something like in the other race, because it’s not easy to overtake here, but we can fight for the podium“.
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