After the engine breakage suffered at the Austrian Grand Prix when he was about to complete a very valuable one-two for Ferrari, the Maranello team made the decision to mount a new power unit in the Spanish F1-75 and that sent him to the bottom of the grid for exceeding the limits established by the FIA for the use of engine components.
Carlos Sainz, who only had to fight with Kevin Magnussen to start 19th or 20th, took to the track at the beginning of Q1 and set a 1:32.297 that helped him to be third, behind Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen. At that time, he returned to the pits and did not return to the track for the entire round.
Because Magnussen also made it to the second qualifying round, the Spanish driver had to go out in Q2 to fight for 19th position on the starting grid. With a 1:31.081 , Sainz posted a time that put him first, nearly a second ahead of Verstappen .
The Danish driver from Haas also managed to enter Q3 and that again forced the Madrid native to make an appearance on the track in the last qualifying round of the 2022 Formula 1 French GP.
On his first lap, Sainz went out on the track with a used tire and worked together with Leclerc to slipstream, losing his lap. Given that Magnussen was not going to shoot in Q3, the second lap of the Madrid driver in this round was also to give the Monegasque driver slipstream and finally pole position, after a great strategy by Ferrari .
As soon as he got out of his car, the Madrid driver acknowledged the good feeling, but lamented the penalty that will force him to start tomorrow from 19th place.
“In terms of speed it’s maybe the best weekend so far, finishing first yesterday Friday, first again in Q2 with a bit of a margin, well this weekend I think there was potential for pole position.
“But hey, it was time to penalize and sacrifice to give him a slipstream that I think has helped. I think we have sacrificed a good weekend so far and tomorrow it’s time to come back,” he added.
Charles Leclerc , the poleman of this French Grand Prix, thanked Carlos Sainz for slipstreaming in his post-qualifying statements, and the Spaniard wanted to value the teamwork that both are doing this season.
“We have worked well as a team, just as we have been doing all year. It is something that perhaps is not valued as it should be, but both Charles and I have worked very well this year as a team.”
Thinking more about the race, Sainz did not want to give many hints and simply said that they had many different strategic options on the table to choose from.
“We will have to see… The hard ones are a bit slow, so it will not be easy to decide if we start tomorrow with that wheel, but then the medium one goes well and the soft one does not go bad. There are quite a few strategy options, it is a very long weekend and we have to see what the best option is,” he concluded.
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