The Scuderia Ferrari HP duo were front runners in a very closely contested Sprint Qualifying on the Friday of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix at the Jose Carlos Pace circuit in Interlagos. When the 24 lap, 100 kilometre Sprint race gets underway tomorrow at 11.00 local (15.00 CET) Charles Leclerc will be on the third spot on the grid, with Carlos Sainz’s SF-24 right behind him in fifth. Getting near the front was today’s goal, giving both drivers the chance to go on the attack in the race.
SQ1 to SQ3. As per the regulations, all drivers had to use the Medium tyre for the first two sessions, switching to Softs for SQ3. In the first part, the Ferraris went out with enough fuel to do several laps, to make the most of the track evolution, while in SQ2 they went with a lighter load. They both easily made the cut to the top ten shoot-out, with the limited time available meaning that all drivers only went for a single flying lap. Charles prepared his tyres well to set a strong 1’09”153, which provisionally put him second, followed by Carlos in 1’09”257. Max Verstappen crossed the line after them, splitting the two SF-24s, beating Sainz by just 38 thousandth. Then Oscar Piastri secured pole, which dropped the Scuderia drivers to third and fifth.
The importance of the Sprint. Tomorrow’s Sprint which can yield a maximum of 15 points to a team finishing first and second, will be very important for all the teams who will use it to assess car behaviour in race trim, given that the only free practice session this morning was more focussed on Sprint Qualifying. After the race, teams will have around three hours to prepare for qualifying for the Grand Prix itself at 15 local (19 CET).
Charles Leclerc #16
I’m relatively happy with our Sprint Qualifying, I think we maximised our result for the session today and I don’t think there was anything more to gain.
The McLarens were particularly fast, and we’ll give it everything to challenge them in the Sprint Race. It will be important to bring home every point we can.
Carlos Sainz #55
Today was really challenging, especially because of the track conditions. During Sprint Qualifying, it was windy and the track was much colder, which didn’t help us at all. In Q2, I managed to do a very good first lap on the Medium tyre and didn’t need to push a second time, so we saved that tyre a bit for the Sprint race.
The final run with the Soft was good, but we still need to find more grip if we want to qualify further forward.
Fred Vasseur Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP
We wanted to be in the mix in this Sprint Qualifying and we managed to do it, so we can be quite satisfied with our starting positions for tomorrow.
We knew it would have been difficult to do better than this today, as the McLarens were clearly faster. The key was for the drivers to adapt to the car and the conditions with the track being very hot in practice and much cooler for Sprint Qualifying.
Now we’ll focus on tomorrow’s race, and then we will try to do a better job in the real qualifying since the most important moment in terms of points, is on Sunday.