'I thought it was nothing special' – Sainz stunned after securing pole for British GP

By Sports Desk July 02, 2022

Carlos Sainz expressed his surprise after he secured the first pole position of his Formula One career for Sunday's British Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver pipped championship leader Max Verstappen and team-mate Charles Leclerc to first on the grid, putting him at the front for what will be the 150th start of his career.

A wet session at Silverstone left everything to play for heading into the final minute of qualifying, but none were able to better Sainz's time of 1:40.983, finishing less than a hundredth of a second ahead of Red Bull's Verstappen.

While it was enough to secure a landmark result for the Spaniard, he did not believe his lap would be top of the pile.

"It was a good lap, I was struggling a lot with the standing water with the intermediates. It was very easy to get snaps and lose the lap, also very easy to lose the tyres," he said.

"In the end, I put in a lap that I thought was nothing special, I just put it on the board and see how it is and it was pole position, which cannot be a bad surprise."

Sainz will now be seeking the maiden win of his career and, having shown improvements in Canada with a second-placed finish behind Verstappen, believes he has the potential to do exactly that.

"The base has been there all weekend. We had some issues that we think we have corrected. If I base myself on my FP2 pace, I think we will be in a good position. I'm sure Max and Charles will put on a lot of pressure but I will try my best of course."

Verstappen had consistently set the fastest laps in qualifying, but with the weather playing a part, he ultimately could not do enough to get the job done.

Nevertheless, he feels he is in a good position as he looks for a third consecutive win.

"It was quite a tricky qualifying with the rain, you have to be on the track at the right time, but overall the car was working really well. In Q3, it's a bit of a lottery sometimes when you have to put in the best lap," he said.

"To be on the front row, it's very good for us and we have a good race car I think both in the dry and in the wet."

Leclerc, on the back of some difficult race weekends, starts on the second row after spinning on his final flying lap – though he still believes he is in a position to mount a challenge.

"I spun on the last lap, I knew it was the lap where I had to put everything together, but I didn't as the driver, so I didn't deserve to be on pole," he said.

"It's a good position to start in for tomorrow's race and hopefully we can put everything together and come back.

"I think the pace is there, if we have a clean race and everything goes well, a good start and tyre management, the strategy will be a bit mixed between one or two stops so it will be interesting to see. Hopefully we make the right choice and come back to where we want to be."

PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION

1. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) 1:40.983
2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.072
3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.315
4. Sergio Perez (Red Bull) +0.633
5. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +1.012
6. Lando Norris (McLaren) +1.101
7. Fernando Alonso (Alpine) +1.133
8. George Russell (Mercedes) +1.178
9. Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) +1.736
10. Nicholas Latifi (Williams) +22.112

Related items

  • Guenther Steiner knows Red Bull’s dominance will come to an end at some point Guenther Steiner knows Red Bull’s dominance will come to an end at some point

    Guenther Steiner has warned Red Bull their dominance of Formula One will end just as Mercedes’ did.

    Red Bull have won the last three constructors’ championships with Max Verstappen completing a hat-trick of drivers’ titles, in the process breaking the strangleholds imposed by Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton in previous years.

    Seven-time world champion Hamilton has endured a miserable start to the new season with his car lasting just 17 laps of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix as team-mate George Russell crashed out to leave the Brackley and Brixworth-based team 71 points adrift of Red Bull after just three races and pile the pressure on boss Toto Wolff.

    But asked about their difficulties, former Haas team principal Steiner said: “Obviously they are struggling a little bit at the moment. For me, they are a good team, I think they’re a good team. It’s just like it’s competition.

    “Mercedes was dominating for a long time and you cannot always be dominating, you shouldn’t expect that. Now we say Red Bull is dominating – it will come to an end, like Mercedes came to an end.

    “A lot of people are saying, ‘Mercedes is not doing well’ – Mercedes is still in the top four at the moment or top five, they just need to do a little bit better. But it’s how competitive this sport is and you cannot take anything for granted.

    “Obviously Toto would love to dominate the sport forever, but nothing is forever. I think it’s good for the sport and shows also how quickly it goes up and down.

    “Mercedes is still doing OK, they’re still scoring points. Sometimes you forget there are 10 teams and not only three which are allowed to win. I think all 10 should be allowed to win and those are the things you learn when you are outside of the sport like I am now.”

    Hamilton, who is in the midst of his worst start to a campaign, will join Ferrari ahead of the 2025 campaign, leaving a huge gap to plug.

    Steiner, speaking after being announced as an ambassador for May’s Miami Grand Prix, was asked if Carlos Sainz – winner in Australia just 16 days after undergoing surgery for appendicitis – would be at the top of his list if he was in charge at Red Bull or Mercedes.

    He replied: “Toto has no urgency to sign anybody because everybody is waiting until that seat is filled, but I’m sure a lot of people are speaking to Carlos at the moment.”

  • Barbadian F2 sensation Maloney eyes improvements after third-place finish in Melbourne Barbadian F2 sensation Maloney eyes improvements after third-place finish in Melbourne

    Barbadian driving sensation Zane Maloney is focused on consistently improving his performances, as he seeks to continue building on his sweep of the Formula Two season-opening events.

    Maloney’s comments followed another positive weekend in Melbourne, Australia, where he again made the podium after finishing third in the feature race, on the heels of a 10th place finish in the sprint a day earlier.

    This latest podium adds to the 20-year-old’s sprint race and feature race victories on the opening weekend of the season in Bahrain.

    “Satisfied but of course we just need to keep making steps forward. I think we have showed the last three rounds that Bahrain wasn’t a fluke. We have had the pace each round. We just need to keep working on it,” Maloney said in a post-race press conference.

    “I think qualifying from my side is much better than last year. I just need to keep improving that. We have always been fast in the race and made good moves, so we just need to keep going. Everyone is catching up, so we need to keep performing well,” he added.

    In the feature race in Melbourne, Maloney, who drives for British team Rodin Motorsport, finished third behind 19-year-old French-Algerian driver Isack Hadjar and 20-year-old Estonian Paul Aron.

    Two weeks ago in Jeddah, Maloney trailed in seventh in the feature and just missed out on a podium place in the sprint race when he ended fourth.

    He was left ruing his luck again last Saturday when a costly error left him down the field instead of near the podium.

    “Should have been a podium. From my side, I made a big mistake which lost me lots of places. But the second half of the race was really good from my side, so I am pleased with that. Happy to be back on (the podium after a) bit of a chaotic race. For sure the pace has been good all year so far. I think we have proved that each round. It is cool to have a clean Feature Race,” Maloney reasoned.

    The Bajan sensation’s next assignment will be the May 16-18 Grand Prix at Imola.

  • Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to miss Japanese Grand Prix Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to miss Japanese Grand Prix

    Mercedes boss Toto Wolff will be absent from the next Formula One race in Japan, the PA news agency has learned.

    It is understood that Wolff’s decision to miss the race in Suzuka on April 7 was taken before the start of the new season and is not connected to the team’s performance in Australia.

    Wolff admitted after Sunday’s race at Melbourne’s Albert Park that it is “fair” to question his future as team principal following Mercedes’ troubling weekend.

    Lewis Hamilton qualified only 11th and the worst start to his 18-season career was confirmed when his engine expired on lap 17, while team-mate George Russell was seventh when he crashed out.

    Wolff, who lives in Monaco, will be on the intercom remotely throughout the race weekend in Japan – with his duties at the circuit to be divided between senior members of the Brackley team.

    The Austrian also missed last year’s Japanese GP and the ensuing round in Qatar, following knee surgery. On those occasions the team’s driver development director Jerome d’Ambrosio was handed the effective on-site team principal baton.

    But it emerged earlier this month that D’Ambrosio is set to end his association with the team when his contract expires at the end of the season.

    Wolff admitted in an interview with the PA news agency last year that he intends to scale back his on-track presence in the coming years.

    The 52-year-old, who has been in charge of Mercedes since 2013, recently signed a new three-year deal to remain as chief executive and team principal of the F1 operation he co-owns with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ola Kallenius.

    Mercedes won an unprecedented eight consecutive constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021 but they have tasted just one victory from their last 48 outings.

    Fresh from his harrowing accident in Melbourne, Russell is expected to be at the team’s HQ in Northamptonshire later this week as Mercedes search for solutions to their underwhelming start to the season.

    Russell failed to make it to the end of Sunday’s race after hitting the wall on the penultimate lap in his pursuit of Fernando Alonso.

    The double world champion was adjudged to have driven dangerously by the stewards and was demoted from sixth to eighth following a post-race 20-second penalty.

    However, the 42-year-old protested his innocence in a message posted on social media.

    Alonso wrote: “A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds.

    “I believe that without gravel on that corner, on any other corner in the world we will never be even investigated.

    “In F1, with over 20 years of experience, changing racing lines, sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners is part of the art of motorsport.

    “We never drive at 100 per cent every race lap and every corner, we save fuel, tyres, brakes, so being responsible for not making every lap the same is a bit surprising. We have to accept it and think about Japan, to have more pace and fight for positions further up the field.”

© 2023 SportsMaxTV All Rights Reserved.