Sainz feeling under the weather in 'difficult' practice

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Carlos Sainz admitted that he was still feeling unwell on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, having missed media duties in the run-up to the race weekend with a serious stomach bug.

Despite feeling significantly off his best, Sainz elected to take part on both of Tursday's practice sessions and was sixth fastest in the daytime run, and seventh in the evening where he was six tenths off Fernando Alonso's pace.

Sainz said that "it's very difficult to read into lap times" and admitted that it had been a "difficult 24 hours", having needed to take it easy in the cockpit today.

"Obviously a very difficult day after feeling sick," Sainz told the media in a brief paddock appearance after the end of FP2. "The last 24 hours have been tough and difficult for me.

"I haven’t fully recovered from the sickness that has kept me in bed for the last 24 hours, and I still feel very weak," he explained. "But I made it to the track and managed to maximise the time with the car and the team.

Read also: Alonso finishes on top in second practice

"I was still a bit on the non-ideal side, but we managed to complete the programme without issues," he continued.

"Today was all about trying to get myself on track and learn as much as possible from the car without really pushing too much the limits.

"The track is super high grip and high speed, so it also makes it tough from a physical point of view," he pointed out. "It's a lot more demanding for the car, but also for the driver.

"Hopefully tomorrow I'm feeling better, even if probably I will not be 100 per cent," he admitted. "But feeling better will allow me to be more on the limit and perform a good Saturday.

"We will prepare everything and try to go for a good qualifying," he continued.

His Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc was fifth in the daytime and improved to fourth fastest in the evening behind Alonso, George Russell and Max Verstappen, getting within 0.353s of the top time.

"The track had good grip to start with and we can expect quite a lot of track evolution throughout the day tomorrow," Leclerc commented.

"All in all, everyone is really close in times so it will be tight and interesting to see who extracts the maximum from their car and comes out on top."

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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.