Carlos Sainz surprised all by popping his Ferrari P2 in Qualifying for the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix, and now aims to deny McLaren as many points as possible in their fight to be 2024 Formula 1 Constructors' World Champions.
Las Vegas may be his third last race for Ferrari, but that has not deterred Sainz in the quest by the great Italian team to win an F1 world title for the first time since 2008 when Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa did the business for the Reds.
After a tense and exciting Qualifying session in Las Vegas, Sainz summed up afterwards in parc ferme: "Very tricky. That was a tough, tight qualy. A bit closer to the pole than I was expecting. Actually, I thought I had pole but then George came very, very quick at the end, but very happy.
"We are starting in a good position for tomorrow. P2 last year but 12th on the grid because of the famous drain cover. This year I start P2 so hopefully we can make a better one.
"We need to stay confident that we can be fighting at the front even more than today. So if today we were close in qualy tomorrow we might have a chance at going for the win and that will be the target.
"Obviously passing and strategy will be a different thing tomorrow. I feel like today Mercedes were very good at switching those tyres on. If you see in sector one they were flying, they were three-tenths up on us, and we were coming back as the lap was going on," Sainz pointed out.
Leclerc: It wasn’t a great qualifying
"We'll see how the car is going on high fuel. I honestly think we need wins to beat McLaren [to the Constructors' Championship]. So we need to win this race," insisted Sainz, winner in Australia and Mexico City.
The Spaniard clearly wants to leave Maranello on a high before his next F1 chapter with Williams. The best way to do it would be to win the 2024 F1 Constructors' title.
In the other Ferrari, the team's acknowledged speedster, Charles Leclerc had a less happy time with P4, he said in the team report: "It wasn’t a great qualifying. We struggled quite a bit with grip and couldn’t get the tyres in the right window, so we will be looking into this.
"It shouldn’t be an issue during the race and after we clear the first few laps things should look slightly different, but we will have to be careful at the start as graining will be high.
"On the upside, we qualified ahead of both McLarens which is our target, so we will give it our all to keep it that way," added Leclerc, like Sainz signalling Ferrari's intent to end as long drought and add another F1 title to the
Latest News
Loading
