Carlos Sainz: “In qualifying, we had no more to give, but we can fight in the race” | F1 Lusail GP. Seventh place for Carlos Sainz in qualifying for the Qatar GP.

If Charles Leclerc isn’t smiling, Carlos Sainz isn’t faring much better at the 5.419-kilometre Lusail International Circuit. The Ferrari driver finished qualifying in seventh place, behind all the top-tier cars, considering that Sergio Perez’s Red Bull RB20 has long ceased to be competitive.

Carlos Sainz was just over half a second behind Max Verstappen, who claimed pole position, and 183 thousandths of a second off Leclerc’s best lap time. Leclerc finished fifth in Q3, also behind both McLarens, Ferrari’s direct rivals in the battle for the Constructors’ Championship.

After qualifying, Carlos Sainz was candid about Ferrari’s performance. While Leclerc managed to extract the maximum from the SF-24 in Lusail, Sainz lost time due to not finding a slipstream during the critical final run in Q3.

“It seems we found our limit and couldn’t have done better than this,” Carlos Sainz admitted. “I think Charles’ 1:20.8 is our maximum potential for today.”

“In my last Q3 run, I lacked a slipstream. I definitely lost one or two tenths because I didn’t have anyone ahead of me, but we are where we should be in terms of gaps. It confirms what we’re missing.”

Although qualifying fell short of expectations, Carlos Sainz is more optimistic about tomorrow’s race. Ferrari tends to perform differently in race conditions. Moreover, in the Sprint Race, Carlos Sainz managed to comfortably match the pace of George Russell and Oscar Piastri, offering promising prospects for the Scuderia.

“I prefer to talk about results tomorrow. If we have a good race, then it’s a different story. Our race pace is definitely better than what we can achieve in qualifying. Today, we managed to stay on the tail of a McLaren and Russell. Surely, Lando Norris could have pulled away if he wanted to. It should be better, and we’ll fight to score as many points as possible, knowing from the outset that this is certainly not one of our favorite tracks.” – the future Williams driver concluded.