Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has expressed his disappointment with his P6 finish at the 2024 Spanish GP qualifiers. He was expecting to put up a fight for a pole position, before settling for P6.
Following a P3 run at FP3, the Spaniard entered the qualification session hoping to grab a top-three spot. But, now he’ll be starting tomorrow’s race from the third row, behind teammate Charles Leclerc.
Regarding his unexpected result, Sainz came out to take out his frustrations ahead of the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz 2024 Spanish GP: ‘Obviously disappointed’ with his P6 finish at the 2024 Spanish GP qualifiers
As the qualifiers ended in Barcelona, Ferrari failed to grab the second row start just by one spot. After placing P3 in FP3, Carlos Sainz had to settle for P6 in today’s grid-deciding session. He delivered a ‘below par’ run with a lap time of 1:11.736 in Q3. In the first two sessions, he recorded lap times of 1:12.403 (Q1) and 1:11.874 (Q2).
In the end, he finished behind his teammate Charles Leclerc. Above the Ferrari men, Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, and the Mercedes drivers proved to be out of reach.
In the post-quali presser, Sainz shared his disappointment after giving it his all-in front of the thousands of fans cheering him on. He expressed that he is “obviously disappointed” as he was “expecting to be in the fight for pole position“. Beginning his assessment of the session, he said:
“Not good.”
“Obviously disappointed. We had strong practice sessions, and we were expecting to be in the fight for pole position. Immediately in Q2, once Red Bull and McLaren turned it up, we just didn’t have the pace.”
Sainz, who was just five thousandths slower than Leclerc in Q3, was clearly not expecting to settle for P6 today. After topping the FP3 timesheet, he was 0.353 seconds slower than ‘pole-sitter’ Lando Norris today. Reflecting on this, he explained:
“We could sit here and argue about three hundredths, we would have been P3, and we would all be happy, but the reality is no, I was expecting to fight for pole this weekend, or after free practice. To be more than three tenths off is a lot of lap time.”
However, the 29-year-old Spaniard is still hopeful of a “good start” at the race, with the “support of the crowd“. Despite the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya being a tough track, he believes that Ferrari can “go for it“. Concluding the session, he added:
“We just need to make sure we get a good start; we get ourselves in a better position.”
“It is very clear to me that starting P6 around Barcelona doesn’t make the podium very easy, but with the support of the crowd, and I think I’ve done a very solid weekend up until now, we can go for it.”
In any case, Carlos Sainz and his partner Charles Leclerc will start from the grid’s third row of the 2024 Spanish GP. The race will officially kick off at 15:00 PM (local time) tomorrow, and will last for almost two hours.
Image Credit: Scuderia Ferrari
[adrotate banner=”3″]
Get 10% off all official F1 Merch at TheRaceWorks.com using code ‘EF1‘ at checkout.