Carlos Sainz faced the classification of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with great options to be competitive after what was seen in the last free practice session, where he finished in eighth place, a few thousandths behind his teammate, Charles Leclerc.
In the first qualifying round, the Ferrari man went through to Q2 without any problem, and even put his car in the top four when the checkered flag fell for that Q1 in Jeddah. He had overcome a great scare with Pierre Gasly, whom he found just when he was going at high speed in a fairly blind area.
On his attempt at round two he lost the rear of the SF21 and, although he regained control of the car, he slightly damaged part of the rear wing touching the wall, forcing him to return to the pits with seven minutes remaining. The mechanics had to debate to see what was the best option, whether to repair that part and give up or go back out on the track.
The decision seemed quite clear with hardly any time , and the Madrid native put the Ferrari back on the Saudi tarmac. At the decisive moment, he made another mistake in the same place, and although this time he did not touch the wall, his chances of progressing to Q3 were ruined there.
“I was going very fast in Q1 and all weekend, I was very confident with the car. Unfortunately, with the medium tyre, it didn’t react as it should on the front wing, I had too much load on that part and that caused it to crash. moved a lot from behind”, he summed up before the DAZN F1 microphones.
“I lost the rear end with the bad luck, and at the same time good luck, that I was able to save a good blow, but I touched the rear wing a bit and it was no longer possible to improve,” he explained.
Despite this, Sainz believed he could have achieved a better result without incident: “I tried to do a lap after that, I did a very fast first sector until it broke completely, and it’s a shame, because today was a day to get to Q3 easy and finish in the top five”.
The man from Ferrari, in the blow, believed that he could try to set a time again to make a good classification: “If you see the repetition, the tip of the wing rubs and breaks in two, that’s why I don’t notice it and I was a little confused”.
“I said to myself: ‘If I didn’t touch anything or feel a hit, how did the wing break?’ Then, watching the replay, it is clear that the wing has touched and that has cost me the classification, because it came very fast”.
The Spanish rider will start from 15th after a poor qualifying: “Overtaking here is difficult, and starting behind makes it difficult, but it is what it is. It has been very good for me in the past to make comebacks, so all is not lost “.
“Today it was easy to make mistakes, this track eats you up very quickly at the slightest, but this could happen to the others tomorrow and I’m going to try to come back”, concluded Sainz.
