Ferrari will monopolize the second row of the starting grid in the race in Austin. Carlos Sainz was satisfied after qualifying, as he managed to place third, two positions better than in the Qualif Sprint the day before.
“It was the goal to take a step forward in qualifying compared to yesterday. Yesterday I was fifth, today I am third, I took a step in the right direction” declared the Spanish driver after qualifying.
“I’m a little bummed about that last lap as I was three tenths faster with two corners remaining, but we made good progress and we should be in the battle tomorrow if we get a good start, it should be fun with the two guys in front.”
He acknowledges that tire degradation was a cause for concern throughout the qualifying session: “I’ve always kept an eye on it because it’s something we’ve struggled with recently to get the car into the right operating window in qualifying.
“We always seem to be fast in the race but we have ups and downs in qualifying. But it seems that we managed to do things well, especially in that last lap before the yellow flag, we put the car in a good position and we managed to find a lot of time in both sectors.”
Charles Leclerc set the third fastest time on Friday and placed fourth: “It wasn’t an easy qualification, we had the difficulties we expected in qualifying. In the first sector it was very complicated, very inconsistent, but we knew we were going to have this problem.”
“We had to survive this qualifying and focus on tomorrow. Third and fourth places aren’t so bad. There was perhaps a little better to be had on the last lap, but it would have been between Carlos and me, the two in front were too fast.”
