Sainz: “I’m a bit tired of being half a tenth from pole”

In Austria He remained 82 thousandths from pole, just 53 thousandths from second place Leclerc. In Hungary, Russell he took the pole sainz on the horn for only 44 thousandths. In Zandvoort92 thousandths from the pole of Max 71 of Leclerc. In Italy, not having a slipstream on his last lap and his engine change penalty also left him without that award. And in the ranking of Japanese GP this weekend, it happened again: Carlos Sainz is 52 thousandths from Verstappen’s pole and 42 from Leclerc’s second position. It’s normal for Carlos to be fed up with the fact that, for whatever reason, he once again took a breather from the first position on the starting grid.

“I was a bit tired being half a tenth from pole. I’ve had a few qualifyings like that since Zandvoort before the summer, where the three of us were tight on that pole, but somehow Max (Verstappen) or Charles (Leclerc) always had the pole instead of me. I hope I can get a pole position before the end of the season”, said Carlos Sainz in the press conference after the qualifying session held in Suzuka this Saturday.

At the beginning of the course, when he was not comfortable with the Ferrari, he stayed close. Without further ado, in the first round of the year in Bahrain, he was 0″129 from the pole, just 6 thousandths from the second position. Or, for example, in Miami, where he was 2nd, one tenth behind Leclerc. As his confidence in the car improved, he got closer and closer. He hit the table at Silverstone in his first pole position, placing 72 thousandths on Verstappen and 3 tenths on Leclerc. And he repeated first place on the grid in Belgium as to Verstappen’s penalty after finishing second in the ‘qualy’, but since then, the Spaniard has been closing in on them but not catching them, something he wants to finish with another pole position in one of the last four races that remain until at the end of the course.

“It was a good lap until the last chicane, where maybe I overheated the tires before that chicane and I lost time. Another half-tenth we could have won there”, lamented the Spaniard. And certainly one of the most important keys on the Suzuka track is to arrive with the tires in good condition in the final sector, which means sacrificing enough time. of the first sector in a complex and very rigorous search for that balance.

“It was a very clean lap until the last corner, where I skidded a bit. Maybe I used the rear tires too much and wasted half a tenth off pole again. We had a lot of qualifiers where we were half a tenth from pole. I was hoping he would fall a bit more on my side towards this end of the season to get a pole”, he added after getting out of his car.

Watching the sky for possible rain in the race

However, the Spaniard did not want to waste any more time thinking about it and chose to focus on this Sunday’s race, where he is sure he will have options given the uncertainty that the arrival of rain can bring at any moment. .

“I think the weather will play its role. We know it will rain, but we don’t know if it will rain at 2:00 pm (race start time in Japan, 7:00 am in Spain), 3:00 pm or 4:00 pm after the race. A lot can happen tomorrow, there’s also a good chance from the third and we’ve got a set of softs in case we need them. We are in a good position to fight Verstappen tomorrow.”sure

“The car is pretty close to perfection. I think we found a good balance in FP3, which is a good sign. The initial setup is pretty good on any track and then it depends on who gets that half-tenth. Now it’s Max’s turn and in other circuits it’s up to us, but in qualifying it’s very tight”, he added about another very close classification, and that is that in one lap the Ferrari performs better than race, where it suffers. more degraded than RedBull. If this Sunday’s appointment is dry, that greater degradation could cause reds again. But if it rains, as Sainz said, “many things can happen.”