Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz felt ‘relieved’ to be fighting with teammate Charles Leclerc for pole position on Saturday after being far behind during the practice sessions
On Friday, Carlos Sainz gave Ferrari a scare when he claimed that he was still struggling to understand his F1-75 car over the short runs, leaving him with work to do overnight. But the Spaniard made a strong recovery on qualifying day as he fought closely with teammate Charles Leclerc for pole position.
Sainz eventually ended up finishing P3, behind polesitter Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. But the 26-year old was more relieved than anything by his reaction after the qualifying session.
Carlos Sainz highlights relief after FP struggles
It was quite a strange situation in Q3 when Carlos Sainz took provisional pole for a brief moment in his second run of the session. The reason was that he was really struggling to get to grips with his new car at the Bahrain GP practice runs.
Sainz eventually saw his time eclipsed by teammates Charles Leclerc on his final run as the Monegasque took pole position. While Sainz couldn’t do any better on his final run, he did manage to get an impressive P3 as Max Verstappen climbed to 2nd on the grid.
While speaking after the first qualifying session of the season, Sainz admitted that he was still getting used to his new car and had a lot to learn about it as well. He also revealed that he was happy with getting P3 only 0.129 seconds off Leclerc’s pole time when at one point he was nearly half a second down on his teammate.
Sainz said, “I’ve been slow, simple as that. Charles has been doing a much better job than me during the weekend and I have been playing catch up… He had a very good last lap. I think he put together everything and at that point, you just need to congratulate and say good job to the team. It’s good news to be back fighting for pole position again.”
“I’m having to think a lot while driving, and that is taking quite a lot of space from my head. Every corner I need to really understand what the car is doing and I probably just don’t exactly know what’s going on.” he concluded.
Ferrari last won a race back in Singapore in 2019. But they now have a great opportunity to start off the new 2022 season with a win and possibly a 1-2 finish as well on Sunday.
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