The Ferrari had to slow down due to poor adjustments

Ferrari did not repeat their double achievement of pole position. The Italian team had surprised everyone in the qualifying sessions in Austin and Mexico. However, the results are quite different for the Brazilian weekend. While Charles Leclerc had very good sessions on Friday and will start 2nd on Sunday, Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, struggled. The Spaniard will start 7th.

Ferrari encountered difficulties on Saturday. During the sprint qualifying, both cars only achieved the 7th and 9th fastest times. At the end of the race, Leclerc made a great comeback, moving from 7th to 5th place. As for Carlos Sainz, he gained one position.

Limited drivers

During the sprint, the two cars were not easy to drive. Both athletes reported issues with the accelerator. “I hope it will be better on Sunday, but today, it’s the greatest number of mechanical adjustments I’ve ever had to make,” explained Carlos Sainz at the end of the sprint. “I had to create so much downforce and coast that I couldn’t even press the brakes, so I had to make sure to have the DRS at least to be fast in the straight lines.”

Despite these issues observed, the Spanish driver remains confident for the race on Sunday. The Italian team will rely on new adjustments. “We used the worst possible settings we had and kept the good ones for the Sunday Grand Prix, so I hope that will help,” explained Sainz. “But it won’t be very positive if we have to continue dealing with so much drag and free wheeling, which was very, very tricky given our temperatures. We simply couldn’t push our race.”

Ferrari acknowledges a mistake

In Brazil, the sprint format limits the time for adjustments. The Parc Fermé rule forces teams to take risks for the Saturday format. For this weekend, the risks did not pay off for the Italian team. “We made a small mistake with the cooling today and asked the drivers to make a huge improvement from the second lap,” admitted team principal Frédéric Vasseur.

On his part, Leclerc declared that he was slowing down very often. However, the Monegasque hopes that starting in second position on the starting grid would alleviate some of the pressure. The cars are becoming so fast now that you have to ease off… analyzed the 26-year-old driver. But on my part, this was definitely the race where I had to manage this aspect the most this season. If it’s the pace of the cars, then I’m almost certain that even if I overtake Max, it doesn’t really matter, because I think in two or three laps, he should overtake me.

Ferrari currently holds the 3rd position in the constructors’ standings (before the race on Sunday in Brazil).