Carlos Sainz shared his reflections on the qualifying session of the Imola GP and expressed his perspectives for tomorrow's race.
After an excellent start to the weekend, with good sensations already during free practice, Carlos Sainz took fifth place in qualification for the 2024 Imola GP. The Spaniard failed to maximize the on-track potential of his SF-24 with the new updates, which looked promising to aim for the top positions at the start on Sunday, and even pole.
Despite the good feeling during the first sessions, the Madrid driver made no secrets his pessimism about the qualification in his statements to Sky's microphones:
Carlos Sainz on Mara Sangiorgio's microphones“I didn't expect much more, I thought it was a circuit for McLaren and Red Bull. The wind didn't help us in many corners. They are 2-3 tenths behind, but it is difficult to find them with these rules. There will be Ferrari circuits, but it's not Imola. When there is a rear wind there are corners like 2 and 3 where we struggle, yesterday the wind was against us and they were our best corners. There is still a lot of sensitivity to improve with the next packages. For the race we can fight for the podium, for a victory you need something special like what happened to Norris in Miami".
Sainz, agrees with his teammate, Charles Leclerc, regarding the problems in the corners of the first sector, which appear to be the weak point of the team since the beginning of the season. Both drivers have declared on several occasions the difficulty in bringing the SF-24's tires up to temperature, a situation that seems to have improved. A problem or "feature", as Fred Vasseur classified it, on which the Maranello team still has to work to reach pole in qualifying.
Tomorrow, as stated by Sainz, both drivers will have to fight with a McLaren which has proven to be very competitive after the updates brought to Miami, and with Max Verstappen's Red Bull, who will not have the support of his teammate, Checo Pérez, eliminated in Q2. The Imola GP race will be held tomorrow at 15pm.
