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Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz said he “struggled” in sprint qualifying after feeling strong in FP1 earlier in the morning.
The Spaniard qualified fifth in between the two Australians of Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri respectively, and languished just over three tenths off of his teammate Charles Leclerc, who didn’t get any running in practice thanks to a spin on the exit of 16.
It seemed that, not just for Sainz, as the track temperature went up in the afternoon, many struggled to work out the tricky tyre equation of not overheating the rears too quickly.
“We had a strange behaviour from the car from FP1 to SQ,” the Spaniard said. “We were struggling quite a lot with the grip, struggling to put a lap together and sectors together.
“So yeah, it’s definitely something we need to look into, because definitely I struggled through the whole qualifying.
“When I put on the soft, I was on a bit of a good lap, but I still made another mistake in turn 17 and lost the lap, so yeah not happy obviously, but let’s see if we can turn it around tomorrow for the full qualifying.”
When asked about how the car would perform in the sprint, Sainz admitted he doesn’t know as the car performed well in the morning but fell away in the afternoon.
“I don’t know really because the feeling in FP1 was good, but in sprint qualifying was not good, so which one will come is difficult to say.”