A bad day for the Spanish pilot.
Carlos Sainz will start the Australian GP much later than expected, after suffering a series of misfortunes in Q3, the third part of the qualifying session. The man from Madrid, with the rhythm to fight for pole position with his teammate Leclerc, who finally achieved it, ended the day very angry.
The driver of the number 55 Ferrari had shown that he was at Leclerc’s level throughout qualifying, but when push came to shove, everything went wrong for him. On his first fastest lap in Q3, the Spaniard had to lift his foot just before the checkered flag after the session was interrupted by Fernando Alonso’s accident. His time did not count.
VIDEO: What you need to know about the Australian F1 GP
This left him without what was a good lap, in which he was equaling Leclerc’s times and, with a good third sector, he would have taken the lead. When Q3 resumed, Carlos suffered a sudden problem with his car, forcing him to leave the pits very late.
For this reason he was unable to prepare the lap or warm up the tires properly, and was relegated to ninth place on the starting grid, something really disappointing for Carlos, who has his team-mate in first place.
“We had a problem with the starter. We couldn’t start the car and we went out on the track three minutes later than we had planned,” Sainz explained after getting out of his Ferrari. “I couldn’t get the tires ready, I couldn’t warm them up, everything was on full throttle and I had to do the lap on frozen tyres. It was a horrible lap.”
“I was very unlucky. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, especially since I had been in the fight for pole position throughout qualifying,” said Carlos, who defined what happened as a disaster.
“It’s just a disaster. Today I was in the fight for pole position and everything went wrong. I can’t be happy, but tomorrow is another day. I need to go to sleep. Until I do, I’ll be angry,” he concluded.
Sainz has been on the podium in the two races held so far, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and in Australia he was ready to fight for his first victory or, at the very least, get back on the podium. It will be difficult for him, since he starts far behind, but it will not be impossible: in Albert Park there can be accidents, red flags, safety cars…
