The new winner of the last F1 Singapore GP, Carlos Sainzstarted the F1 Japanese GP with fourth position at the end of the first day of free practice, 0.549 off the best time of Max Verstappen. The Dutchman from Red Bull was on another planet from the start and reconfirmed as the great favorite for everyone. Behind him is where Carlos wants to be a lap away this Saturday, waiting for what can happen this Sunday on a track where on this first day the tires went down more than expected, surely the main weakness this season in the race for the red cars. Before you think about it, The man from Madrid is focused on guiding his team with the right SF23 setup.
More comfortable than Leclerc at this stage of the season at the wheel of his car, the Spaniard is key to the search for the best set-up and that is why he focused his Free Practice 2 on testing different set-up idea that he eventually did. not work. This explains why, after being 2nd in Free Practice 1, in the following session he was 2 tenths behind a Leclerc who started in a better position than in the last rounds.
Ferrari will want to lead the chasing pack in qualifying and try to get a tough podium against McLaren and Mercedes. That chasing group is very evenly matched with Verstappen, something Carlos highlighted after the dispute on the first day of practice at the legendary Suzuka track.
“We fix the car a lot”
“This weekend the differences with our closest rivals seem to be very small, so we are back to where we were in the previous races, with a very strong Red Bull again”declared Carlos Sainz in the statement released by the team.
“For me, we are still adjusting the car a lot and this Friday we tested a lot of different configurations to try to find the best compromise for this track,” he added after the many tests he did in FP2. Sainz has been key in his work to find the appropriate settings for Zandvoort, Monza and Singapore and he wants to be at this track again.
“We have a lot of data to analyze and tonight we have to decide what settings to use this Saturday, trying to put the car in the right performance window. We have some interesting days ahead of us,” He argued, optimistically, knowing that he could get more potential out of his car before the ‘qualifiers’.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
