Carlos Sainz explains Ferrari issues in Sprint Qualifying: “We are slow with the softs” | 2024 Austrian GP. Carlos Sainz's comments after Ferrari's performance in Austria Sprint Qualifying.

Ferrari, Carlos Sainz minimizes the damage

Carlos Sainz leaves the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring in Spielberg knowing that today, with this SF-24 car, doing more was clearly difficult. The Spaniard, fifth at the end of Sprint Qualifying, cannot be satisfied with the result compared to expectations that were certainly higher and the half-second gap to poleman Max Verstappen, but he believes that with the soft tires, the SF-24 car behaved worse: a problem that was clear especially on the flying lap and an issue which the Maranello team’s technicians will analyze tonight in the hope of finding more pace on Saturday.

Carlos Sainz’s comments

“I did a decent qualifying, with three very clean laps. Unfortunately, since FP1, we noticed that we are a bit weaker with the soft tires compared to the mediums and hards,” commented the Spaniard.

“When we put on the softs for SQ3, from a possible top-3 position we dropped to fifth. But the same happened in FP1, where we were sixth: there is something to analyze. Unfortunately, at the moment, this is the situation we are in, more or less. I hope we can make some progress. I start from fifth place, on the clean side of the grid. Tomorrow we will try to score as many points as possible,” he added. “Then we have another qualifying session where we still need to fine-tune the car a bit.” – Carlos Sainz concluded at the end of the of Sprint Qualifying session for the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race.