Carlos Sainz rages over Q1 traffic clash with Hadjar as Albon laments conditions despite reaching Q3 in Canadian Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz was livid after the Canadian Grand Prix qualifying session, where he was eliminated in Q1 after being impeded by Isack Hadjar. The Williams F1 driver estimates he lost several tenths, having been knocked out by just 20 thousandths, less than six tenths off the fastest time in the first part of qualifying.
“Well, it doesn’t matter if I was fast. If in Q1, you arrive and a driver in the middle of the track completely ruins your qualifying, your weekend is ruined,” Sainz fumed.
“I’m 17th when I should be fighting for Q3 and the top 8 today, so I’m extremely disappointed. I had already seen him in turns 3 and 4, and I was surprised he didn’t move aside there or afterwards. I had already lost a tenth or two due to dirty air, but I thought, ‘Well, maybe he’s just trying to give me dirty air.’”
“It’s not a big deal, but maybe he was borderline and trying to give me dirty air on purpose. Then I realized that approaching turn 5, he couldn’t move over. I had to lift and pass him on the inside of turn 6. Like in a race, with a poor angle for turns 6 and 7.”
“I lost two or three more tenths, maybe three or four tenths just in that section, which was already a lap just 20 milliseconds away from Q2. It’s incredibly frustrating, but that’s how it is.”
Asked about his chances for the race, the Spaniard was too upset to consider them: “I don’t care about tomorrow right now, I’m thinking about the disappointment of today’s result, because I was 20 milliseconds off Q2 and I was impeded.”
“Basically, I had to take a wet line through a dry corner. Honestly, I don’t care right now, we were fast all weekend, we were quick in race pace, but we’re still not where we want to be.”
Alex Albon qualified ninth and believes he could have done much better if the weather conditions had been similar to yesterday: “I think we should be sixth or seventh, we’ve shown that pace all weekend.”
“The wind turned 180 degrees today, and that changed the car’s balance. We also struggled with the tyres, and the combination of the tyres and wind was the recipe for a lack of performance.”
“We dropped back a lot, we were strong yesterday and everything collapsed. We have work to do, we’re having trouble with the C6 tyre, it’s happened several times. We knew the medium would be better but we should have optimised Q3 better.”
