Carlos Sainz admitted he was not surprised that he was knocked out of qualifying for the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix from Q2 given the issues he faced with his car's handling.
The highs of Monza and Singapore for Carlos Sainz seemed like a distant memory, as the Spaniard failed to make it into Q3 in qualifying in Qatar on Saturday, as he struggled to get to grips with his SF-23 around the Lusail International Circuit, a track Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur admitted would be challenging for the Reds' Formula 1 car.
As a result Sainz was only 12th at the end of qualifying, while Charles Leclerc who made it into Q3, could not go higher than fifth.
Speaking after qualifying, Sainz said: "I had a very difficult quali, right from the beginning. Just struggling with the balance.
"The rear was very, very loose, while in FP1, I managed to switch on the tyres and get decent grip on this new surface," he added.
"When the track [temperature] dropped this afternoon, I just couldn’t find any grip out there, so I just struggled quite heavily, so I’m not surprised to be out in Q2.
"Hopefully we can turn it around for tomorrow, the Sprint, and have a better Saturday. But definitely Sunday’s going to be tricky, starting from so far back in a difficult track to overtake.
Focus on performing better on Saturday
"But my main focus now is to try and see what we can do better tomorrow," the winner of the Singapore Grand Prix concluded.
Sainz was also under further threat as he got in the way of Max Verstappen during qualifying, which meant he had to see the stewards after the session. He got off with a warning though.
In the other Ferrari, Leclerc fared a bit better, but was not happy with his qualifying, he revealed: "We had an issue in the high-speed on the fast lap, which made me downshift [when I was] flat-out, which wasn’t great.
"We lost quite a bit there, and then we struggled a lot basically with the first timed lap," the Monegasque lamented.
"I had to abort my first run in Q3 after running wide in a corner in the first sector and so I only had one lap left to set a competitive time. It was quite tough to get the tyres to work today: on the first flying lap the rears were not working as expected and the situation only improved when you continued to push, which is not ideal in qualifying.
“All in all we maximized with what we had, we just need to work tomorrow to try and find the pace straight away," Leclerc concluded.
Ferrari are chasing Mercedes' second place in the 2023 F1 Constructors' Championship and have a 20-point-gap to close to the eight-time F1 Constructors' Champions.
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Reporting by Agnes Carlier, Writing by Jad Mallak
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