Sainz and Leclerc finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively, in the sprint qualifying session for the Qatar Grand Prix.
The first free practice session of the Qatar GP had given some hope to everyone, Ferrari included. However, the sprint qualifying, held in the afternoon, brought the Scuderia back to reality with Carlos Sainz in fourth place and Charles Leclerc in fifth. A gap of three tenths, as predicted by the simulations, to McLaren, with Russell sandwiched between the two Papaya cars.
After qualifying, the two Ferrari drivers spoke to the press, sharing their feelings about Friday’s sessions. These were Sainz’s words: “Unfortunately, I found myself in a complicated situation. In the first two sectors, I had Max in front of me, who was preparing his tires for his lap, and this forced me to follow in dirty air. Additionally, the car’s balance wasn’t optimal: I had a lot of understeer and struggled to turn the car. I was able to warm up the tires, but when my lap started, the understeer was still present.”
The Spanish driver then added: “Despite this, I managed to set a time sufficient for fourth place. It wasn’t easy, especially with the pressure I had, and with such a precarious balance, it was easy to go beyond the track limits. All in all, it went quite well, but we need to work to improve for the rest of the weekend.”
Charles Leclerc shared a similar line of thought, with these statements: “I don’t feel great because when you give it your all and end up only in fourth and fifth, it’s not ideal, especially considering how important this weekend is for us. I’d say that in practice, we exceeded our expectations by a large margin, but in qualifying, we returned to more realistic levels, in line with what we expected.
It was a bit like getting back to earth. After FP1, we hoped for a better result, but it didn’t go that way. Winning tomorrow? If we base it on free practice, I’d say yes, but looking at qualifying, which is more indicative, the answer is no. However, in the race, anything can change, so you never know.”
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari