It wasn't the best of Fridays for Ferrari, with Carlos Sainz only fifth fastest at the end of qualifying for tomorrow's Sprint race and Charles Leclerc just seventh after going off in the final round as rain arrived in Shanghai.
Up to that point, Leclerc had been the quicker of the pair in contrast to recent outings where Sainz has been out-performing the Monegasque, including his victory in the Australian GP.
But on Friday neither seemed especially confident as F1 returned to China for the first time in five years. Sainz admitted that tomorrow's Sprint would inevitably be a matter of damage control.
"In the Sprint we will have to survive with what we have and fight from fifth place," he acknowledged, with an eye to ensuring that the cars aren't damaged in the Sprint which would compromise their Grand Prix qualifying prospects.
"This is a very difficult track to get to and almost go straight into qualifying," he noted. "We couldn't do a good SQ3, but I think I saved the day with fifth.
"We made it through SQ1 and SQ2 without major issues, but then in SQ3, with the rain and the intermediate tyres, we struggled quite a lot with the rear tyres as we weren’t able to get them up to the right temperature.
He added that he could very easily have suffered the same misfortune as his team mate. "With the intermediate tyres we waited a long time at the pitlane exit. They got cold and then Charles and I struggled a lot on that outlap to warm up the tyres," he said. "I'm lucky I didn't suffer the same."
"It was very difficult to switch on the tyres," Leclerc himself said when asked about the incident. "I tried to be a bit aggressive, but obviously I lost it out of turn 8." Fortunately Leclerc was able to head back to the pits for repairs.
"It compromised a little bit our qualifying because then the steering was a little bit bent," Leclerc continued. "But all in all I don't think there was any miracles, there wasn't much more we could have done differently today."
While there's nothing that Ferrari can do about the cars which are now in parc ferme conditions until the Sprint, there's still the opportunity to make changes before qualifying for the Grand Prix and Sunday's main race.
"The Sprint race is in the morning, then parc ferme opens and we can change the car," Sainz explained. "I would like to be able to make a couple of adjustments to the car after the Sprint race because I don't feel comfortable," adding that he had "a couple of ideas to improve the car."
The weather may prove an even more critical factor on Saturday, If it's dry then Ferrari hope to prove much stronger against midfield rivals such as McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin.
"If the Sprint Race tomorrow is wet it won't be an easy session for us," said Sainz. "But as of now it looks like there is a higher chance of dry conditions. In any case, we will try to recover some positions and face qualifying in the afternoon with good momentum."
"The conditions in SQ3 were extremely difficult and we struggled to get the Intermediates up to temperature," agreed Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur.
"We definitely had been hoping for a slightly less complicated first day on track given that we have not raced here for five year and this is our first time here with the new generation of cars.
"The forecast for tomorrow is better and we expect the rest of the weekend to be dry," he continued. "But I think we are working in the right way and I hope the fact we have saved a set of mediums today will be useful later."
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