22/06/2024
NEWS STORY
The Scuderia Ferrari HP drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have qualified fifth and sixth respectively for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Unfortunately, the result does not fully reflect the potential of the SF-24, nor that of its drivers who missed out on a second row start by just a few thousandths of a second. Tomorrow's race should produce opportunities to move up the order and the long run pace means Carlos and Charles can be hopeful, even if overtaking at the Barcelona-Catalunya track is definitely not easy.
The team and the drivers did what needed to be done: in the first two parts, Sainz and Leclerc only required one Soft tyre run to get through to Q3 for which they therefore had two sets of the softest compound each. Their first runs produced laps in 1'11"915 and 1'11"949 for Carlos and Charles respectively and on their second runs they improved, setting almost identical times: Leclerc 1'11"731, Sainz just 5 thousandths slower in 1'11"736. For a few seconds that put them second and third on the time sheet behind Max Verstappen, but then Lando Norris took the chequered flag to claim pole. Next, the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton squeezed ahead of the Ferrari duo, 30 and 32 thousandths faster than Leclerc, thus relegating the Ferrari pair to the third row.
Scuderia Ferrari HP will have to try and move up the order to get to the podium, which seems possible, even if neither driver has done so at this circuit before. The weather looks uncertain with a chance of rain and that could mix things up a bit. But even under clear skies, the pace demonstrated in free practice means the team can approach the 66 laps of the Grand Prix that starts at 15 CEST with a degree of confidence.
Charles Leclerc: It's a bit disappointing, because we were further from pole than we expected. On the other hand, my team and I did a good job changing the set-up of the car completely from yesterday to today, which helped me to find the right feeling again. However, the pace just was not there.
Our target will be a podium and if the weather is tricky, we will take any opportunity to go for something even better.
Carlos Sainz: Not an easy qualifying. I honestly think our laps were good, but we were clearly missing a little extra today to be further up the order. Tomorrow however, I think we could have an open race. We need a smooth start and with good strategies we can make up some places and hopefully fight for a podium, which would be the perfect reward for all the tifosi that came here to support us. We will do our best!
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal: Overall, it was a decent session even if, but for a few thousandths of a second it could have been better. But that's part of the game and we have to accept it. Looking forward to the race we have to put everything together and I'm confident it will be possible to have a solid comeback from the third row. We decided to save one set of Soft tyres with both drivers for tomorrow and we'll see if this will give us an advantage, especially on a track like this in which how you manage the tyres can make a big difference. We know it will be a very tight fight until the end of the season, with ups and downs and so our target must be to always score points. A plausible target for tomorrow? The podium.