Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz thought his Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying session “was over” after a glitch in Q1.
The Italian squad enjoyed a more competitive start to the season than last year with both Sainz and Charles Leclerc advancing to Q3 in Bahrain, but only after the former suffered a “stressful” engine shut-off in Q1.
After narrowly claiming a place in Q2, Sainz slowed down on his out-lap with an ‘engine stop’ message on his dashboard before his car briefly switched off. Sainz managed to crawl back to the pits, but feared his qualifying session was over.
“I’m happy to be here [in Q3], mainly because I thought that after that situation there the whole car switched off and I thought that was qualifying over for me,” Sainz said.
“It was stressful to say the least in that first Q1, with the team and what happened there. I think we reacted well, we pulled ourselves together after that shock.”
Sainz then set the fastest time in Q2, 0.001s ahead of teammate Leclerc but a poor Q3 lap meant he qualified down in eighth, four spots and half a second behind Leclerc.
“We had a very good Q2. When I saw myself there in first I was very happy,” Sainz told DAZN F1. “My Q3 lap didn’t go to plan. I just didn’t know exactly how to extract the last few times out of the car. But I’m not going to let that Q3 lap to spoil what has been up until now a very good weekend for me. I’m very happy with how things have gone.”
Charles impressed with a fourth spot on the grid, six tenths behind Red Bull polesitter Max Verstappen, despite “overdriving” his Ferrari SF21 earlier in the weekend.
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