F1 | Sainz: “Good third place. The priority is to let Leclerc win”

Considering the progress of yesterday, Carlos Sainz’s third place can make Ferrari smile, because in addition to the pole won by Charles Leclerc, the Red team can count on two SF-24s potentially in the podium area. At the end of Friday, in fact, the Spaniard had made no secret of the fact that he had struggled in the search for the ideal set-up, struggling especially in the simulations of the qualifying laps, when he needs to have maximum confidence in the car.

Precisely for this reason Sainz had shown a bit of disappointment at the end of the day, with the hope of being able to reverse the situation with the set-up work during the night, in order to get closer to his teammate’s references.

FP3 ended with a significant deficit, but in qualifying, when it was necessary to extract those last tenths and get behind other potential rivals, such as the Mercedes and at least one McLaren, Sainz was ready entering the match.

From a strategic point of view, having Sainz so far ahead in the standings could play a crucial role for Ferrari to manage traffic, although Piastri clearly remains the piece to keep under control given his second position on the starting grid.

“I think overall it’s an improvement for me. I struggled throughout the weekend from the point of view of confidence and safety in the car, which is why we can see third place as a step forward”, confirmed Sainz, looking positively at the progress made from Friday to Saturday in the search for the time.

Clearly for a driver the dream is always to fight for pole position, especially when it comes to a special track like Monaco, where everyone dreams of winning. Likewise, Max Verstappen’s mistake in Turn 1 also had an impact, considering that Red Bull hoped to be able to at least fight for the front row with a clean lap.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“Obviously I’m not entirely happy, because I was hoping to be able to fight for pole position, but the truth is that Leclerc did an extraordinary job, the car ran very well all weekend and he was able to extract what was needed. I’m happy for him,” Sainz said.

On Friday the Ferrari driver had shown excellent references on the long run, unlike his teammate who had suffered from the average with which he had once placed a second faster than his rivals in the qualifying simulations. However, it is clear that on a track like that of the Principality, race pace is relative, given that track position is the key element to make the difference in the race.

“Definitely my long runs went well, I looked fast. For some reason this weekend I struggled in the qualifying simulations and did much better over the long distance, something we will have to find out why. But I’m confident that tomorrow the pace in the long runs will be good. But here it’s just a question of track position and we lost it with a less than exceptional qualifying. But it’s Monaco, anything can happen, but the priority will be to win with Leclerc.”