This was definitely a positive day for Scuderia Ferrari HP at the Circuit of the Americas as the team picked up more points than any other in the earlier Sprint race. Then four hours later, qualifying for the United States Grand Prix was more successful than that for the Sprint. It might have been even better, which would have presented Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc with an even greater chance of aiming for the win in the 56 lap race that starts tomorrow at 14 local (21 CEST) when they will start from third and fourth places respectively behind Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.
Sprint Race. The fourth Sprint race of the season got underway at 13h00 and Charles and Carlos immediately put on a great show, the Scuderia Ferrari HP duo eventually bringing home 12 points, the most of any team. From third on the grid, the Monegasque scrapped with George Russell, losing a place to Lando Norris. Carlos got off the line very well and was able to start attacking his team-mate. Their spectacular duel lasted four laps before Sainz moved ahead into fourth place on lap 5. At this point, both Ferraris began to benefit from better tyre management than their rivals and they rapidly closed on Russell. Sainz passed the Englishman on lap 9 with Charles doing the same one lap later. Once in third, the Spaniard continued to push, which saw him close on Norris in the last two laps, bringing Charles along with him. Carlos attacked Norris at turn 1 which forced the McLaren driver into a mistake, so that Sainz was now second. In the last few corners, Leclerc also tried to pass but Norris defended with an aggressive move which was later investigated but no further action was taken, so Carlos finished second with Charles fourth.
Qualifying. The grid deciding session for the Grand Prix got underway at 17.00 with Carlos and Charles always front runners, coming to Q3 each with two sets of new Soft tyres. Carlos started with a 1’32”652 while Charles did a 1’32”740, good enough for third and fourth places. They were both improving on their second run – Carlos by over three tenths which could have netted him second place – but Russell crashed into the barriers at turn 19 and that put an end to the session, with no changes to the order.
Expectations. Tonight the team will work through the considerable amount of data generated today, especially from the Sprint race. Overtaking is not impossible at the Circuit of the Americas and tyre management could make a big difference. Having both cars on the second row means the team can come up with some strategies to put its rivals under pressure. It looks like being a very closely contested race and Scuderia Ferrari HP has several strengths it can count on.
Carlos Sainz #55
Overall it’s been a positive Saturday: we started out with a strong Sprint in which the car behaved very well and I was able to attack and move up three places.Then we switched to qualifying in which we knew after yesterday we had to work a lot on tyre preparation. The first attempt in Q3 was good and the second one was even better as I was improving my time and potentially could have finished a bit further up.In any case P3 gives us the chance to fight with the guys ahead for tomorrow. It will be a very interesting and tactical race and we are ready for it.
Charles Leclerc #16
There was quite a lot of action in the Sprint this morning. Carlos and I had different approaches. While he pushed at the start, I saved my tyres to be able to push more at the end. It paid off for him and we learned a lot about our race pace, and that of our competitors, in preparation for the main race tomorrow.Qualifying went as expected, we knew we would struggle, especially in sector 1, as we didn’t change much since Sprint Qualifying. We have a good car for the race and our competitors all seem to have a similar race pace to ours, so it should be an exciting battle at the front.
Fred Vasseur - Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP
The result overall is a good one, especially as we look in better shape over a long run, which will be useful in the race when you can overtake and when tyre degradation will be significant. We will start from third and fourth and will try to do what we did this morning, moving up the order. It’s good to have both cars on the second row, but there is of course a bit of frustration because our drivers were both improving on their final lap before the yellow flags and of course that was the same for Max (Verstappen) and Lando (Norris), but we have clearly improved significantly.In this morning’s race, we were very consistent, with good tyre management and we were on the pace which is encouraging, scoring plenty of points. I don’t want to make any predictions for tomorrow, but looking at the way we caught Lando this morning and got closer to Max, we can be confident, but we must wait and see.