Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz admitted he could barely believe that he had clinched a front row spot for tomorrow's Australian GP, just a fortnight after undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis in Saudi Arabia.
Sainz was quickest in the first two rounds of Saturday's qualifying session in Melbourne, but missed out on pole by 0.270 to Red Bull rival Max Verstappen at the end of Q3.
"To make it to this weekend and then to put it on the front row after leading through qualifying, I was almost not believing it - especially after how tough it has been," he commented in parc ferme afterward.
"But I am happy to be here," he added. "I'm very happy to be challenging the Red Bulls this weekend. I was a bit rusty at the beginning yesterday but then I got up to speed and I could finally find the pace and felt good in the car."
Sainz missed the last Grand Prix in Jeddah after undergoing surgery, although he was still back in the paddock in time to see his stand-in substitute Oliver Bearman make an impressive F1 debut and finish in the points.
There had been doubts about whether Sainz would be fully recovered in time for this weekend, but the Spaniard was determined to be back in the cockpit for Melbourne if at all possible.
"It's been a tough couple of weeks, a lot of days in bed waiting to see if I could make it to this weekend," he admitted. "I'm not gonna lie, I'm not in my most comfortable state when I'm driving out there. But I can get it done.
Sainz admitted to experiencing "a lot of discomfort and weird feelings" during the track sessions, but insisted that even so there had been "no pain, so it allows me to push for a flat out."
Sainz said he'd been helped by comparing experiences with Alex Albon, who suffered a similar medical emergency in Monza before the 2022 Italian GP when he had be replaced at the last minute by Nyck de Vries.
"I feel like it's exactly what Alex told me before jumping in the car when he got his appendix removed," Sainz said. "With the G-force and everything, on the inside it just feels like everything is moving more than normal.
"You need some confidence to brace the core and the body as you're used to do, but you get used to it," he explained. "There is no pain, nothing to worry about. It's just a weird feeling that you have to get used to while driving."
If anything, Sainz felt that the biggest problem this weekend was missing out on driving in qualifying and the race in Saudi Arabia which had left him feeling rusty heading into this weekend.
"I'm still learning this new car," he said. ""I missed a qualifying session in Jeddah and full race, so probably there were things there that I could have learned through qualifying that I could have applied today.
"The car surprised me in a couple of corners once we started to crank in the flap, so it wasn't the cleanest of laps.
"But as I said, if you would have told me even five days ago that I could have travelled here, still recovering, and be P2 on the grid and fighting for pole, I would have taken it!"
While Sainz will start on his front row, his team mate Charles Leclerc will be lining up in fifth place on the starting grid for tomorrow's race.
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