Ferrari sacrificed the fast lap pace for the race

Ferrari’s best result in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix was fifth place for Carlos Sainz. His teammate Charles Leclerc was seventh fastest. Both Scuderia drivers are unhappy with the final session – Carlos complained that his rivals interfered with him preparing for a fast lap, and Charles complained that his partner prevented him from doing a fast lap.

After the session, Carlos and Charles revealed that the team had decided to sacrifice qualifying pace in favor of car settings more suitable for the race.

Carlo Sainz (5e): “On the one hand I am very happy, but on the other hand I am very dissatisfied. Let’s start with the negative: I did a very bad warm-up lap before the decisive attempt and couldn’t get the tires in working range.

I had to miss two or three riders doing their fast laps. At least I was told they were doing fast laps. So I had to slow down to let them pass, and then they slowed me down and wouldn’t let me through.

I lost two or three tenths in the first sector because the tires weren’t ready. I had to take a lot of risk in the second and third sector to win back. I think if it wasn’t for the first sector I could be in the top three, which can be considered good progress after Jeddah.

Now for the positive results. I’m much happier with the car, which allowed me to attack. The tweaks the team made to the settings should help tomorrow. It’s the race setup that made us not look very good today, but I’m sure if I had a clean lap I’d be in the top three.

I hope the selected settings will help tomorrow. If not, we will at least test this solution. But we still hope that we are taking a step in the right direction.”

Charles Leclerc (7th): “To be honest, I didn’t fly very well in the first and second part of qualifying. I had to put all the pieces together – I think I did a little better in the final.

Usually I manage to collect all parts in the decisive attempt in the final, but unfortunately not this time. For the second attempt in the final we thought it was going to rain, so I didn’t do the prep lap and immediately started to attack, which is bad for the tyres.

I rode the entire first sector behind Carlos. I hope the team and I will discuss this point because I lost some time because of that. But what is is.

I think our car is good enough for the distance of the race. We sacrificed some qualifying pace for race pace – we’ll see how it goes.”