Sainz Disheartened as Ferrari Fails in Spain

Ferrari faced setbacks in Spain with Leclerc and Sainz far from pole, reflecting a challenging race ahead.

Charles Leclerc had hoped for better than fifth place in Saturday’s qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver is pleased to have limited the damage after a poor Friday, but he finds his performances and especially those of the team disappointing for these qualifiers.

“We’ve had a lot of difficulties. In terms of performance, I’m torn between two things. We did a very good job with the settings since yesterday because I felt bad, and the feeling is back,” explains Leclerc, before expressing his disappointment.

“But I’m also very disappointed with today’s qualifying because the performance isn’t there and we are far too off the pole. It’s not a good day for the team but the race is tomorrow and we will try to score points. Then, we can try to understand why we were further off than expected.”

The Monegasque doesn’t think he could have done better than what he achieved: “There wasn’t much more in the car today, we had difficulties with grip and overall pace. It wasn’t a good day.”

Carlos Sainz will join his teammate on the third row after missing Leclerc’s time by just 0.005 seconds. The Spaniard does not hide his disappointment: “Not very good, I’m disappointed. We had a good practice session and thought we were competing for the pole. But in Q2, when Red Bull and McLaren picked up the pace, we didn’t have the rhythm.”

“We could talk about the fact that for three hundredths, we could have been third and happy, but the reality is that I was expecting to fight for the pole, and being more than three tenths off is a big gap.”

Sainz hasn’t completely lost hope of delivering a podium to his home crowd: “We need to make sure to get a good start, to get into a good position. Starting sixth in Barcelona, the podium won’t be easy, but the support of the crowd can help me and I hope to aim for it.”