Sainz ‘not surprised’ by Q2 exit amid balance issues

Carlos Sainz says he was caught out in qualifying in Qatar by his Ferrari’s lack of rear end grip that undermined his efforts to make the top-ten shootout on Friday evening at Lusail.

From the outset, Sainz struggled to get up to speed and ensure his safe passage into Q3, contrary to his Scuderia teammate Charles Leclerc who qualified fifth at the end of the day.

Sainz’s shortfall was a bit of a surprise given the Spaniard’s solid run of from of late. However, the Ferrari charger was anything but astonished by his P12 lap time and Q2 exit.

“Yeah, I had a very difficult qualifying right from the beginning,” he commented after the session.

“We were struggling quite a bit with the balance. The rear was very, very loose while in FP1 I managed to switch on the tyres and get a decent grip on this new surface.

“When the track temp dropped, I just couldn’t find any grip out there, so I struggled quite heavily so I’m not surprised to miss out on Q3.”

• 2023 Qatar Grand Prix - Qualifying Results

Sainz was nevertheless hopeful of being able to turn around his fortunes for Saturday’s Sprint event. But he also felt that his day of racing on Sunday was compromised.

“Hopefully we can turn it around for the Sprint tomorrow,” he added. “But definitely Sunday is going to be tricky starting so far back on a difficult track to overtake.

“My main focus now is to see what we can do better tomorrow.”

Leclerc’s P5 in the pecking order in qualifying came courtesy of both McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris who lost their fastest times in Q3 due to track limit infringements, which set them back to P6 and P10 respectively.

But like Sainz, Leclerc’s efforts were hindered by his SF-23’s balance issues.

“We had an issue in the high speed on the fast lap which made me downshift while flat out which wasn’t great,” he explained.

“We lost quite a bit there and then we struggled a lot basically with the first timed lap. We were very strong with the second timed lap, but whenever we had to do the lap straight out of the box we were struggling like crazy with the rear tyres.

“So I think that’s the explanation then why we struggled in Q3 because it was basically only one lap on my first run. I had to abort [that] for the same reason, and then on my second run I had no choice but to do one lap so that’s what we did.

“But, yeah, all in all, we maximised what we had. We just have to work tomorrow to find the pace straight away.”

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