Carlos Sainz said he'd thrown everything he had into today's qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, and that second place on the grid behind Max verstappen was as good as he could get.
"It was probably the most tricky qualifying I have had here in Barcelona in terms of conditions," said the Ferrari driver after the session.
"Even getting through Q1, Q2 without any issues and putting a good lap in, even with only one set in Q3," he added. "But we did it!"
Sainz received a huge cheer from the Spanish fans when he was introduced in parc ferme having nipped McLaren's Lando Norris, Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton in his final run.
"It was super-tight, very tricky conditions," he acknowledged. "It was very tight with McLaren, Alpine, Mercedes and Alpine. We were all in the same group this weekend.
"I felt like I was driving very well: it is always one-tenth here, one-tenth there, but I didn't leave anything on the table," he commented. "I was pushing flat out."
"P2 is as far as I can make it," he added. "We are in the best possible position for tomorrow and now we can focus on trying to get that podium."
It's his best qualifying result of the 2023 F1 season and gives him an excellent opportunity to score his first podium of the year, the most recent being in Brazil in 2022.
But Sainz still felt it would be hard to stop Verstappen's Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez fighting back from 11th on the grid to compete for second tomorrow.
“I think as soon as I get back to the engineers, they will tell me that the simulation suggests that the Red Bulls should still finish ahead of us," he sighed.
He predicted that he would end up fighting over the remaining podium place with Norris, Hamilton and Ocon.
"I still think it’s going to be a tough call to get a podium tomorrow," he admitted. “We’ve put ourselves in the best possible position to achieve that, but I still think it’s going to be a good fight for me tomorrow.”
Despite claiming that P2 was the best possible start, he admitted that he would almost have been happy to drop to P3 and start on the clean side of the track.
“I wouldn’t have minded if Lewis or Lando had out-qualified me because here the clean side is a bit better for the start," he said. “At the same time, it’s also all about the tow and how lucky you get if you can get a tow or a run down to turn 1.
“Obviously I will try to give it all in turn 1 and go and get that podium - and if Max does something strange, get a win.”
Sainz' success in the session is in stark contrast to the nightmare outing for his team mate Charles Leclerc, who missed the cut at the end of Q1 and will start tomorrow's race no better than P19.
The Monegasque said he had "no answer" as to why he had failed so badly in qualifying after finding that the left-hand corners were undriveable. "This was just very, very weird behaviour, so we'll have to check the car."
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