F1 | Sainz: “We often struggle in qualifying. Here’s why”

Carlos Sainz’s race, like Leclerc’s, was also a comeback. In Singapore, the Ferrari driver from Madrid had to chase from the start. Starting tenth, he immediately lost a couple of positions at the start, but the strategy devised for him paid off.

The very early pit stop helped him to make several undercuts on some of the cars ahead of him, thus managing to get back into the points zone and finish in seventh place.

In the race, Ferrari showed how strong it was. Today, the Reds seem to be the second force, at least on some types of tracks. What is universal, however, is the effort made by the Reds in qualifying.

According to Sainz, the SF-24 has a very narrow tyre usage window and this has often put him and Leclerc in difficulty, as was clearly seen yesterday.

“Race pace has never been our concern, but the qualifying lap because this year, with this car, we have a very small window to make the tyres work. I made the mistake in qualifying but we saw it with Charles too: the window is very small and this year we have often paid for it. We will try in the last 6 races to do better and start further ahead”.

In a few weeks, Formula 1 will fly over the Atlantic Ocean to go to Texas, to Austin, on a traditional track – the Circuit of the Americas. That will be the first, real test bench for the innovations made by the Reds in recent weeks.

“Austin will definitely be an important track to see how and how well the updates work. Austin is a normal track, with very fast corners.”

Many expected a lot from Ferrari in the last three races. Beyond the victory obtained by Leclerc in Monza, in Baku and Singapore the Reds obtained less than initially expected. Sainz, in fact, does not hide it.

“I don’t want to say that the last three races were a missed opportunity, but we should have scored many more points than we managed to do. Who knows, maybe in Austin and Mexico the car will be strong again and we will be able to score more points…”