Scuderia Ferrari HP was a front runner in an exciting qualifying session for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. When the race starts at 22.00 (Sunday 07.00 CET) Carlos Sainz will line up in second place on the front row, with Charles Leclerc right behind him, so while overall it’s a good team performance, it could have been a little bit better as the Spaniard missed out on pole, beaten by George Russell by less than a tenth, and Charles started his final lap with the tyres not quite up to temperature. But the positives outweigh the negatives, with the Scuderia the only one of the top four teams to have both its cars at the front end of the grid and tomorrow, Carlos and Charles can count on having a strong race pace and good tyre management, given what we have seen so far this weekend.
From Q1 to Q3. Charles and Carlos comfortably made it through to the final phase, using just one set of Soft tyres in Q1 and another in Q2, leaving them two new sets each for Q3. On his first run, Carlos stopped the clocks in 1’33”022 which put him provisionally second fastest, while Charles made a mistake in Sector 1 and only managed a 1’33”797. They both improved on the next attempt: Charles set a 1’32”783, shortly before Carlos posted a great 1’32”410 to head the field. Then Pierre Gasly split the two Ferraris and right at the end Russell beat Sainz by just 98 thousands to take pole off the Spaniard.
Close race. Tonight the team will work on every detail in preparing for the race and with both cars towards the front of the grid, teamwork can come into play to put Russell under pressure and fight for the win. It will be very important for Charles to try and get ahead of Gasly at the start, after which it will be a case of carefully managing the tyres to keep the door open for more strategy options. It should be a fantastic show on the Las Vegas Strip tomorrow.
Carlos Sainz #55
I'm happy with qualifying today as it was one of the trickiest Saturdays of the season and we performed well. I would have obviously preferred to be on pole, but Mercedes has been very fast all weekend on a flying lap. Overall, we are in a good position for the race and in terms of pace I’m confident we can put up a fight.I'm happy with qualifying today as it was one of the trickiest Saturdays of the season and we performed well. I would have obviously preferred to be on pole, but Mercedes has been very fast all weekend on a flying lap. Overall, we are in a good position for the race and in terms of pace I’m confident we can put up a fight.Maximising points tomorrow is also key for the Constructors’ Championship battle, so full focus on the race!
Charles Leclerc #16
It wasn’t a great qualifying. We struggled quite a bit with grip and couldn’t get the tyres in the right window, so we will be looking into this. It shouldn’t be an issue during the race and after we clear the first few laps things should look slightly different, but we will have to be careful at the start as graining will be high.On the upside, we qualified ahead of both McLarens which is our target, so we will give it our all to keep it that way tomorrow.
Fred Vasseur - Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP
To be second and fourth on the grid is good for the race, especially as we were struggling for one-lap pace and found it difficult to get the tyres up to temperature. It’s true that Charles was perhaps expecting to do better but he struggled a bit more than Carlos to prepare the tyres. To be second and fourth on the grid is good for the race, especially as we were struggling for one-lap pace and found it difficult to get the tyres up to temperature. It’s true that Charles was perhaps expecting to do better but he struggled a bit more than Carlos to prepare the tyres. Now we have to focus on ourselves and on the race in which I believe there will be plenty of overtaking opportunities as, last year, this was the race with the most overtaking moves.For most of the season, we have had a car that has better race than qualifying pace, and certainly our long run pace yesterday was strong. For sure, the most important thing tomorrow will be tyre management and keeping the graining under control, trying not to push too much at the beginning of the race and managing the tyres as well as possible in order to have more strategy choices.