News is good at Ferrari, finally, the Tifosi have Sundays to look forward to and although they won't start from pole, either Carlos Sainz or Charles Leclerc can win the 2022 Saudi Grand Prix because they can be competitive everywhere says team boss Mattia Binotto.
Not only a fast car on a track like the daunting and ultra-fast Jeddah street circuit and also at a purpose-built venue which they were strong at in Bahrain last Sunday.
This Sunday from second and third on the grid, the Ferrari duo should start as favourites because Red Bull may be on par but their reliability, which resulted in a double-DNF for them in Bahrain.
After qualifying in Jeddah on Saturday, Binotto said in the Ferrari team report: "In qualifying, our gap to pole is really small, a few thousandths, so I think being fastest was within reach today, but never mind because starting second and third is still a great result.
"Even more important is the fact we are competitive. We proved to be quick on a track with different characteristics to the previous ones, which is what we wanted to see.
"Everything could happen in the race – safety cars, red flags – therefore it will be important not to make any mistakes on the pit wall and to try and make the most of every opportunity and react quickly to whatever situations arise," added Binotto.
We need to be quick to react, keep on our toes and concentrate
It was nip and tuck throughout today's qualifying between Sainz and Leclerc, with the latter getting it all together with his final all-purple sector effort which was only dashed by Sergio Perez's stellar pole-winning lap, but the margins were tiny.
Leclerc reported: "It is disappointing to miss pole position today because I know that I put in a great lap. The risk Checo (Perez) took in the last sector paid off and his lap was exceptional. Congratulations to him for a job well done.
"On our side, there is plenty to learn from this qualifying. We were quicker on used tyres than we were on new ones and we have to understand why that was, so that we can put them in a better window next time.
"We were quick in our race simulation this morning and I feel confident. A race in warm conditions, taking place at night, on a very fast and narrow street circuit – it should be an exciting one," predicted the F1 championship leader and 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix winner.
Teammate Sainz summed up his evening in Jeddah: It was a good quali overall, putting good laps together every time we went out. Interestingly enough, I’ve been fast and more comfortable on a used set of softs than on the new set, so maybe I should have also done my second push on Q3 on used tyres.
"We’ll look into that for sure. In any case, the feeling with the car has been better so far this weekend and we’ll keep digging into the data to extract the maximum out of the car.
"Now we have to focus on tomorrow. Of course, the target will be to bring the pace of today’s quali into the race. We have saved several sets to give us different strategic options in case the race gets tricky as it did last year, so we’ll try to make everything work. Let’s race," added Sainz.
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