F1 | Sainz: “I'm not 100%, but tomorrow I see myself fighting at the front”

After a weekend of rest following his appendix operation in Saudi Arabia, Carlos Sainz arrived in Australia with the hope of getting back in the car and rediscovering those “classic” sensations behind the wheel of his SF-24.

As he had anticipated on the eve, his intention was to take part in the race, but he had also mentioned that he would not take unnecessary risks, putting himself aside in case the pain proved to be too acute.

Clearly, at the end of two free practice sessions, after a week of absolute rest after the operation in which he was not able to train as usually happens, except for a few small exercises, the fatigue makes itself felt. Furthermore, the Spaniard opted for alternative solutions to avoid straining the area where he was operated on, adding soft sponge under the belts to reduce pressure on the body.

At the end of the first day, the balance drawn by Sainz is still positive, even though the effort took a physical toll. The Madrilenian finished more than four tenths from the top achieved by teammate Charles Leclerc, but overall he said he was satisfied considering the situation he found himself in last week.

“I feel good, obviously I'm tired after free practice. I'm not 100% physically, but I feel like I completed a good day. If a week ago they had told me that I could have done all the free practice sessions without major problems, I would have been very happy. So I'm very happy with how it went. Obviously I need a good night's sleep and a good recovery for tomorrow. But yes, I feel good,” said the Cavallino driver at the end of the session.

Having not been able to do his classic training program between simulator and exercises, Sainz is trying to rediscover the limits of both the car and his body. His program was in which he tried to rediscover those sensations step by step and, with a greater number of laps under his belt, the hope is to continue to improve tomorrow to put himself on the line for an important result in qualifying.

“I think Charles was particularly fast today. For my part, obviously, I take one step at a time and I managed to pick up the pace, not to the limit of the car and not to the limit of myself, but I think that, with more laps and gaining a little more confidence with the car , tomorrow I will be faster.”

“And I hope I can fight for pole position with him against everyone else, because I think it will be very close. We saw in FP1 how close we all were. I think we made a good step forward in FP2. But I believe that tomorrow's qualifying will be more similar to FP1 and we will all be closer”, added Sainz.