Despite Red Bull and Max Verstappen continuing where they left off before going on holiday, in style and with much higher pace than Ferrari, Carlos Sainz is keeping his faith in winning for the second time.
The penalties of up to 7 rivals on the grid due to the accumulation of new elements in their respective power units led to a qualifying session in which the result at the end of it was going to undergo numerous changes until the definitive starting grid was cast.
In the case of Carlos Sainzthe driver from Madrid had Max Verstappen and his teammate Charles Leclerc at the top of the table, so Sergio Pérez automatically became his biggest enemy in a Q3 plagued by slipstreams.
“This big difference with respect to Max and Red Bull continues to surprise me a lot”
Since the start of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Red Bull had shown itself to be far superior to Ferrari to one lap, especially in the case of the defending world champion, but the #55 ended up achieving its objective.
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measured success
“The lap was good, I’m happy to start from the pole, not so much to see the difference with Max this weekend and what Red Bull gets us», confessed Sainz as soon as he got off his F1-75.
Although it will come from first position on Sunday, the speed differential against the formation based in Milton Keynes does not stop worrying the Spanish. “We have to keep working to see why Red Bull is so fast on this circuit, but the first position is a good place to start from,” he said, although on the other hand he also stated that “we will try to win from there morning”.
The game of slipstreams was another of the key pieces between drivers with penalties and those without, and Ferrari failed, as it usually does, among other things, by putting fresh tires on Leclerc when he was going to give Sainz a slipstream, ruining his first good lap performance.
“My first attempt at Q3 was clean; lap out was a bit of a mess, playing with slipstreams and seeing who wanted to go ahead… in the end I had to put myself in front and I was left without a slipstream. However, in the end that first lap was good enough to get the 2nd position, which was to become the poleSainz continued.
Finally, Sainz revealed that he harbors certain hopes of maintaining the first position in the race despite all these drawbacks. “I am still very surprised by this big difference compared to Max and Red Bull. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow in the race, because I think our race pace is a bit better than our qualifying pacebut there is definitely something there that we have to find out, “he concluded.