After enduring a bout of appendicitis just two weeks prior, Carlos Sainz defied the odds by securing second place in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
Despite grappling with “weird feelings” stemming from his recent surgery, Sainz showcased remarkable resilience, pushing through without experiencing pain during the qualifying session.
Reflecting on his journey to this point, Sainz expressed disbelief at his achievement, considering the challenges he had faced in the lead-up to the race weekend, saying: “It’s been a tough couple of weeks, you know, a lot of days in bed, waiting for this moment, to see if I could be here today and, yeah, to make it to this weekend and then obviously to put it on the front row after leading through qualifying, I was almost not believing it, especially after how tough it’s been.
“But very happy to be here, very happy to be challenging the Red Bulls this weekend. I was a bit rusty at the beginning yesterday, but then I got up to speed and I could finally find the pace and feeling good with the car.”
Acknowledging his less-than-ideal physical condition, Sainz admitted to feeling discomfort while driving but affirmed his ability to push to the limit without pain hindering his performance, saying: “I’m not going to lie. I’m not in my most comfortable state when I’m driving out there, but I can get it done. And as far as I can get it done without the pain.
“Obviously, a lot of discomfort and weird feelings, but no pain, so it allows me to push flat out.”
When asked about Ferrari’s potential to challenge Red Bull for victory, Sainz emphasised the need for peak performance to outshine Max Verstappen. While he fell short of securing pole position thanks to a big moment through the turns 9 and 10 complex, he remained optimistic about his chances, adding: “I think nowadays you need to be 100% to beat Max and today I wasn’t. And probably due to that, I missed out on pole.
“I think today if I would have done 100% good job, pole position could have been possible. And if I would have felt 100% and I would have done Jeddah, I think that 1:15.9 was achievable with the way I was driving. and the way I felt in the car, and tomorrow will be the same.
“I need to be 100% to beat Max. I will give it my absolute everything to do it because it’s been a while since Singapore, and he’s been on that top step since. But yeah, if there’s one weekend where we have a good pace, it’s this one. Tricky track to overtake, tricky on tyres. So who knows? I think we might have a chance.”
Looking ahead to race day, Sainz admitted that all his focus was rightly on qualifying, but he expects tyres to be the big unknown in the Grand Prix as nobody has done any running on the hards.
He says continuous learning and improvement are vital in Ferrari’s pursuit of Red Bull if they cannot challenge the 26-year-old on Sunday: “I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. I haven’t given it too much of a thought. I was just going through quali there in my head rather than going through tomorrow.
“But, well, first of all, it’s high degradation in Medium compound. obviously the Hard hasn’t been touched yet by many teams or by anyone really, so there’s a lot of unknowns going into tomorrow.
“The biggest thing we saw is that it’s very easy to grain the Medium tyre. So being in traffic behind the Red Bull might not be the best for that tyre.
“And then let’s see how the Hard behaves, if the Hard is a good tyre or not. But for sure, having two cars is always better than one.
“But the race pace today and yesterday has been good enough to make me believe that if I’m feeling good tomorrow, I can give it a run for the win. If not, we will have to keep learning and keep seeing how we can keep getting closer to Max, obviously leaving everything to see how I feel also during the race physical-wise.”
