“Puzzles me a bit” - Carlos Sainz confused by deficit in one key area in the F1 Imola GP qualifying

Carlos Sainz was puzzled by the significant loss of track time in the first sector against rivals such as McLaren and Red Bull. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda after the qualifying in Imola, the Ferrari driver claimed that he has been struggling to extract performance from the soft tire.

While Ferrari looked good on Friday with their upgraded car, they were not significantly ahead by Saturday. They were behind both McLarens and Max Verstappen in the qualifying session. Classifying fifth in the final session of qualifying, Sainz was beaten by his teammate Charles Leclerc and both McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. However, a three-place grid penalty for the Australian promoted the Spaniard to fourth place in the second grid row.

Carlos Sainz was puzzled by the loss of time and shift in balance in the first sector. He also complained about soft tires being a problem which could be partially due to his driving style, a problem his teammate does not have. However, the tailwinds at some of the corners of the circuit made the Ferrari struggle. Wind sensitivity tends to be one of the weaknesses of their car, which can cost a tenth of a second or two at tracks like Imola.

Asked by Sportskeeda about the change in performance from Friday to Saturday, Carlos Sainz said:

“But no one runs the fuel, the engine, especially Red Bull run the engine really turned down on Fridays. If you look at the soft laps and the GPS data, it has always been McLaren and Max today, especially in Q3 looking very strong.

"The only thing that is puzzling me is how we can be four tenths down only in one sector, which is sector 1. I've been struggling every time we put on the soft tire this weekend. I seem very strong on the mediums, the hards, you put a used soft on and I find barely any lap time, which puzzles me a bit. That is something that I need to work on. But yeah the gap in sector 1 was particularly big.”

Asked if it was the balance that shifted in the first sector, he explained:

“It is a balance shift and its also the way the wind was blowing today, it doesn’t really help our car. Tail wind into turn 2, tail wind into turn 7 which is our main weakness, still with this car it is something that we know we need to improve and we’ve been trying to improve for a while. And yet that probably didn’t help our sector 1. But in general, we never had enough to challenge Red Bull, McLaren maybe with a huge lap but when you have the two cars in front, they are just stronger.”

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Carlos Sainz believes McLaren have an edge over Ferrari in qualifying pace

McLaren brought a heavily upgraded car to Miami but its true potential was masked by tire behaviour issues in the warmer weather, a problem several drivers faced. Imola has suited the McLaren historically, giving them the edge over the Ferrari. However, Carlos Sainz believes that the Woking-based team was two to three-tenths ahead of them in Miami itself and the trend continued into Imola.

Nevertheless, the 29-year-old felt that edge could be track specific and they could be challenged at tracks that suited the Ferrari more. On whether their heavily upgraded package had delivered to their expectations, the Spaniard verified their progress but refused to give out any number.

Asked if McLaren had an edge over Ferrari in qualifying, Carlos Sainz said:

“Yes. They had it in Miami. Its just that with the soft tire they struggled in Miami. When you saw the lap times we were doing on the mediums in the sprint, in the quali, and the race specially, they were two or three tenths ahead of us. And we came to a McLaren circuit which is Imola and I think it was always going to be difficult to beat a McLaren around here.

"We were a tenth off with Charles and three tenths off with me, so struggling a bit. I’m pretty sure it was going to be a McLaren track and then there will come Ferrari tracks which hopefully we can challenge them.”

Asked if the upgrades on the Ferrari had worked, Carlos Sainz said:

“It has worked exactly as we expected and fortunately. I don’t know for some reason everyone expected us to be flying this weekend with the new package. I’ve been seeing numbers of our package going around that were completely out of reality.

"Nowadays already to bring a tenth is a good job by the team and I'm not saying we have brought one two or half tenth but not the numbers people were mentioning. And with that in mind, it was always going to be difficult to take a jump this weekend because people are also upgrading their cars here.”

Ferrari’s upgrade has been speculated to be roughly two to three-tenths of a second worth of performance. However, Carlos Sainz felt the upgrades were overhyped and downplayed their potential.

Currently, the Scarlet squad are running second in the championship with McLaren trailing them closely. However, with Red Bull’s upgrade not paying off extensively, Ferrari and McLaren could be close enough to challenge the reigning champions. In the constructors' championship, Ferrari are 52 points behind Red Bull and 63 points ahead of McLaren.