Charles Leclerc thinks he could have challenged for pole, but for tactical reasons refrained from making a decisive effort to save an extra set of soft tires for tomorrow’s race, in which he will start from third.
Carlos Sainz lost 0.154 seconds to his partner in qualifying and starts fourth. Commenting on the result, the Spaniard confirmed that Ferrari is inferior to Red Bull Racing rivals not only in qualifying, but also in the race.
Charles Leclerc (3rd): “There were no problems with the car. To our surprise we were fighting for pole position, which I didn’t expect after testing and training at this track. So far we’re struggling a bit, but we still managed to show good pace in the qualifying round, and it’s been great!
However, we must not forget that our car seems to be inferior to Red Bull in race configuration, so we are a little behind. But I think if we start from 3rd position on new tires we will be in a more favorable position than if we start from pole position but on rolled tyres. I don’t know if we would have won pole, but we were close.
Rivalry is unfolding very sharply – I hope it will be on Sunday. The results are tight, the Aston Martin team showed good pace, Mercedes was also fast in some qualifying stages, but we are much closer to the leaders than expected. All this promises an exciting battle on the circuits throughout the season, which will make Formula 1 even more interesting.
It looks like we are still behind in terms of race pace, which is our weakness, but tomorrow we will be helped by fresh sets of tyres. I don’t know how much this will change the picture, but we are moving in the right direction.”
Carlo Sainz (4th): “Up to qualifying I had a difficult weekend. In qualifying I managed to get all the ingredients together and put in some good laps. However, I’m not 100% happy with how I passed some corners of the second sector – there were some issues with it, but the main thing is that I improved and tomorrow I will start from a good position.
We tried our best to compete with Red Bull, but the reality is they are one step ahead in qualifying and one and a half steps ahead in the race. Our car is not good enough in the long run – we have to keep working on finding the optimal settings.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
