'We could have got there', insists Sainz after Suzuka quali

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Carlos Sainz was just 0.057s behind pole winner Max Verstappen in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka International Racing Course on Saturday - but that was still only enough for P3.

The Ferrari driver has been on pole twice so far this season at Silverstone and Spa, but has been frustrated to miss out on several other opportunities by similarly wafer-thin margins.

This time he said that the soft compound Pirelli tyres had let him down just when he needed them most at the end of the final top ten pole shoot-out round.

Read also: Verstappen sets sights on title with Suzuka pole

"It was a good lap, clean all the way until the last chicane," he told the media after the end of the session. "Then I probably overcooked a bit the tyres going in, and it cost me quite a bit of lap time."

He insisted that there had been "another half a tenth that we could have got there" which would have been enough to put him ahead of Verstappen and his own team mate Charles Leclerc.

"I picked up quite a bit of wheelspin, just a bit too much for my rear tyres in that last lap," he explained. "It was a very clean lap, a very good lap all the way until the last corner."

So far this season, Sainz missed out on pole in Hungary by 0.044s to Mercedes driver George Russell, and was just 0.092s off the pace in Zandvoort where he qualified in third behind Verstappen and Leclerc.

"Somehow it tends to fall into Max or Charles' hands instead of mine," he lamented. "Before the summer break, we were all three very tight with each other.

"I'm a bit fed up of being half a tenth off from pole. I think it's been a few qualis now, consecutive since Zandvoort.

"Hopefully towards the end of this season I will end up getting one and get it out of the way," he added.

Today's qualifying result means that Sainz will start from the second row of the grid for Sunday's race, in a race that could see the Red Bull driver mathematically clinch his second world championship.

That will happen if Verstappen wins the race and a bonus point for fastest lap, even if Leclerc comes second. Sainz himself is no longer in contention for the title.

However he is locked in a tight battle for fourth place in the drivers championship with just one point separating him and Russell, and Ferrari still need to seal the runners-up spot in the constructors championship over Mercedes.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.