Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc spoke after the Qatar GP Sprint race, after finishing where they started.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc started P4 and P5 coming into the sprint race. Lewis Hamilton jumped the driver from Monaco on the first lap.
From there. Leclerc dropped back as the top 5 built a DRS train.
Sainz could stay in the DRS of the top 3 as Norris played the perfect team game, but he never looked like challenging Russell.
Behind them, Leclerc had a stunning wheel-to-wheel battle with Lewis Hamilton at the start of lap 15, making the pass fully stick into the turns 4 and 5 section.
Leclerc’s positive outlook for Ferrari in Qatar GP race
Leclerc states that Ferrari expected to struggle at the Qatar GP. However, after the Sprint, the 27-year-old thinks that their race pace is ‘pretty good’, setting the fastest lap as well.
“We expected coming into the weekend to struggle a bit more, I have to say that the race pace seems to be pretty good,” he said.
Being wary however, the Monegasque stated that they need to qualify well as overtaking would be difficult to do.
He expects that starting lower than the second row would imply more trouble for overtaking, especially with just one DRS zone.
“However if we don’t have the qualifying pace. we won’t be able to show the race pace. Because overtaking is so incredibly difficult that it will be tricky to do anything if we are starting from P5-P6.”
Leclerc stays positive, saying that they know where to improve, coming into today’s qualifying.
“Tonight qualifying will be fundamental, we know where to improve, let’s see if we manage to do so.”
Leclerc versus Hamilton
The Ferrari driver and his future teammate Lewis Hamilton had that previously mentioned battle.
Asked about it, he said that he really went on the limit with it, saying that it was a nice move.
“Yeah, it was really on the limit, I went on the limit with Lewis, it was a nice move at the end. But yeah, a little bit of a banging wheel and it was fun.”
Carlos Sainz’ grip issues
Carlos Sainz’s sprint race wasn’t smooth sailing either. As he stated having low grip in the first parts of the race with dust being a factor from the right hand side of the grid.
He had a big snap of oversteer at turn 1, but he managed to keep P4.
“It was tough, especially lap one with zero grip starting on the inside of the track. I think we picked up a lot of dust and yeah it was very very low grip with the medium tyres.“
He said he did not quite have the pace to fight the top 3 on pure speed, as he stated that Russell had more pace to pressure Oscar Piastri.
He believes that Mercedes had at least a tenth more versus the Ferrari.
“Then once I got it set into a rhythm the pace wasn’t that bad, but you could see that in front they were controlling, and if anything Russell seemed to had a bit more to put Piastri under pressure and I couldn’t put George under pressure so the feeling right now is that they have a tenth on us.”
