F1 News
Ferrari understand their issues in Qatar: 'In SQ3 we struggled'
After the cutting the gap to McLaren in Las Vegas, Ferrari will start the Sprint in Qatar on the backfoot. Both drivers finished behind the Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the session. Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and team principal all reacted to finishing in P4 and P5 in Sprint Qualifying, the team report.
Leclerc and Sainz hope for a better Saturday in Qatar
Charles Leclerc could finish in fourth position in Sprint Qualifying, and was not satisfied with the result. "Our FP1 performance was better than expected, so our hopes were that we could finish SQ in good positions, given that this weekend is such an important one for us. Unfortunately, we didn’t and P4 and P5 is all that was possible today. Let’s see what tomorrow brings. For now we are not in the best positions, but things can play out differently come the Sprint race," the Monegasque driver said after SQ3.
Sainz talked about they could improve his car for Friday night, but it was still not enough. "A rather unusual qualifying session. In terms of balance, we worked in the right direction and the car improved from free practice. However, in SQ3 I had quite a lot of understeer which obviously didn't help to put together a better lap."
"Starting on the second row can still allow us to bring home a good result and hopefully, to try and attack one of the McLarens ahead, score points and collect data which will help us prepare for Sunday," said the driver who finished in P5 on Friday.
Vasseur sees Ferrari's issues with understeering
"We had a much better car in FP this afternoon, but we had too much understeer in SQ3 which meant we struggled a lot," team principal began. "If we want to look on the positive side, we can say that the big points are only given out on Sunday so we have to react and be ready for tomorrow evening’s qualifying and make sure we have a good car for Sunday."
The Frenchman is unsure about how the grid looks in terms of race pace. "Now the cars are in parc fermé until after the Sprint Race, but following that we will be able to make changes for the main Qualifying session. Pace-wise it’s quite difficult to have a real picture, as no one did a really long stint in practice so we cannot be sure what level of graining we will have. The Sprint race will be a bit earlier in the day so the track temperature will be higher and there should be less graining."
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