Not the qualifying Carlos Sainz expected. Last year’s winner crashed into the barriers on the final corner in the opening minutes of Q3, severely damaging the rear of his Ferrari and bringing out a red flag.
No physical repercussions for the Spaniard, just a lot of disappointment. Sainz admitted that the mistake was his and that it was linked to several factors: the lack of grip, a bump (‘bump’, as Carlos said in English) and… a pinch of bad luck.
The Madrid driver, in fact, explained that having to let some cars pass right in the final part of the circuit did not help the preparation of his lap, making him arrive at the last corner with cold tyres.
“I was already on the cold side when I started to go for the lap and as it was a Q3 lap I wanted to have a good exit into the last corner, but the problem was that I was very slow on the entry compared to Q2 and Q1 and I wanted to accelerate earlier to make up that time, otherwise I would have lost a tenth on the first straight without even starting the lap. I underestimated the lack of grip from having cold tyres there.”
“I was under pressure, with another car coming from behind and I knew from the launch lap that I would be slower on my lap.”
Another determining factor, Sainz said, was a bump in the kerb at Turn 17 that betrayed the Ferrari driver, who admitted his guilt and apologized to the team for the error of judgment.
A completely different weekend compared to the one in 2023, as underlined by the Ferrari driver himself:
“It’s strange how it can change from one year to the next. But as we’ve seen many times this year, getting the tyres in the right window on a lap with our car is… quite difficult.”
“I had a couple of decent laps over the weekend, but overall I was very inconsistent. I had issues with the brakes yesterday and that didn’t help me prepare for the weekend. This is about building confidence, doing perfect laps from FP1 to Q3, and I didn’t do that this weekend. I struggled. Yesterday I couldn’t find the rhythm and today it was very difficult to get the tyres and brakes into the window.”
An unusual weekend from several points of view: Sainz, in fact, speaking about McLaren, underlined how the papaya team was hiding on Friday, with Norris who in FP3 improved by a second compared to FP2, while “in Q3 they went only a tenth faster than FP3, which is quite strange”.
“There is something strange, probably, in the preparation of the tyres and in how much you can extract this weekend with the tyres, because it is not normal that there is only one tenth between the fastest lap of FP3 and the fastest lap of Q3.”
A day to forget for the Maranello team in general, to be honest, given that Charles Leclerc will start ninth due to the cancellation of his time due to a track limit. An all-Red fifth row, therefore, with the two drivers who must hope for a dramatic turn of events to be able to return to fighting for the top positions.
“The car looks pretty damaged and I don’t know what we’re going to do. I just hope I can have a normal race tomorrow, get into the rhythm that I got in Baku and show a good pace. And I think this year, once I get into the rhythm in the race, we should be OK. It just took one lap with the black magic of the tyres to make it all work – I mean, the mistake I made is not common and it’s not typical, and it shows that there has to be something, honestly, a very, very fine line between having grip and not having grip. And this weekend was like that. So tomorrow, as soon as I get into the rhythm, we’ll be there.”
Sainz also spoke about the much-discussed topic of tyres, saying he was confused about what was happening on some tracks, where tyres have proven difficult to manage. “5-10 degrees below the right level and there is no grip. And yes, even 5-10 degrees above, there is zero grip. So you have to find the right window.”
The Spaniard, despite the hard blow (moral and otherwise), says he is optimistic for tomorrow’s race, trusting above all in the DRS zone added compared to last year.
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