F1 | Sainz: “I limited the damage. We can come back in the race”

For now, the China weekend at Ferrari hasn't gone exactly in the direction the team was hoping for. The sprint brought a fourth and a fifth place which left a bad taste in the mouth, but even more disappointing was the qualifying, which ended with a sixth and a seventh position, over six tenths behind Max Verstappen, who gave the hundredth pole to Red Bull.

Two contrasting feelings, as highlighted by the drivers themselves, even if Carlos Sainz preaches calm in view of tomorrow's race, aware that the Cavallino team could potentially have something more than its closest rivals in the chase for the podium, i.e. McLaren and Aston Martin.

It wasn't an easy Saturday for the Spaniard, given the accident in the sprint with Fernando Alonso which effectively cut him out of the fight for third place, but also the contact with the barriers during the first attempt at Q2. Sainz in fact ended up against the wall after losing the car in a spin exiting the last corner, but fortunately at the last second he partially managed to straighten the car at an angle such that the damage sustained to the suspensions did not prove to be significant .

The only piece to be replaced in the end was the front wing, which was completely destroyed in the crash: “It's very simple. I took the curb on the inside, ended up a little outside on the gravel and spun. It wasn't the ideal situation, especially in qualifying, but I think we recovered well,” explained the Madrid native, before explaining how he attempted to recover the situation.

“I honestly did it a bit on purpose [a toccare il muro in quel modo]. When I saw that I was about to hit the wall, I tried to turn at an angle that would compromise the suspension and the rear wing less. Clearly it's difficult, but I managed to do it at the last moment and fortunately it allowed me to continue.”

“We did a good lap in Q2 to regain that momentum and also to regain some confidence. We had to change the front wing which behaved a little differently, so the behavior changed a little, each front wing has some differences and that didn't help. But we recovered well.”

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Clearly, perhaps something more was expected from Ferrari, also because in the first rounds it often occupied the role of second force even in qualifying, while today it only occupies the third and fourth row. Sainz attempted to give an explanation to these problems, underlining how it could be a mix of factors, including the characteristics of the track and those of the asphalt: “Already from FP1 we saw yesterday that we were not very fast here on the flying lap. There are many long medium and high speed corners, where last year we struggled a bit, here they are even longer and we struggle even more. It doesn't surprise me, but I hope we can do better in the race. We start seventh, I think the cars in front are faster on the flying lap.”

“This combination, then with this strange asphalt, which doesn't seem to give us much grip over the course of the weekend, made everything very difficult, I don't think there was much more to our car today. We hope to have that tenth or two more in the race than the others we often see.”

Precisely referring to the race, the Ferrarista believes that the Maranello team has something more in terms of pace compared to McLaren and Aston Martin, as partially demonstrated in the morning during the sprint, while Red Bull is clearly out of reach, also given the different starting positions.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“In terms of race pace we need to focus not on Red Bull but on McLaren and Aston, they seem to have a better qualifying pace, but I think that over the long distance we can have our chances. The problem is that there are three cars to overtake.”

“For example, in Suzuka to overtake Norris I had to extend my stint a lot. To overtake three cars tomorrow, we will need an excellent pace, because then you wear the tires a lot trying to pass. My feeling is that we can recover, but we have to show a better pace than today.”

Finally, Sainz also closed the Leclerc discussion after the post-sprint controversy, due to a perhaps too aggressive attitude of the Spaniard towards his teammate, which then led him to apologize after the race: “There is no 'There was a lot to clear up and there's not even much to talk about now.'