Ferrari rues soft tyres for its dip in performance in Austin Sprint qualifying
Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc rued the balance of their SF-24 on the soft tyres after neither of them were able to challenge for the pole position in the Austin F1 Sprint.
Ferrari did not bring any upgrades to its SF-24 to Austin, but the Scuderia looked mighty quick across the sole practice session on Friday. The Italian team managed to carry this form over into the short sprint qualifying session, with Leclerc going fastest in SQ1 and Sainz setting the benchmark in SQ2.
However, with the rule restricting drivers to the soft tyres in the final part of sprint qualifying, the top ten bolted on the red-walled tyres for the all-important qualifying segment. Leclerc and Sainz were only separated by thousands of a second, but neither of them were able to challenge Max Verstappen and George Russell for the pole position.
Reflecting on his qualifying session, Leclerc said that he did not have the same feeling on Pirelli's soft tyres that he had on the yellow-walled compound.
"Not the ideal result, but P3 is not too bad as a starting position for the Sprint Race and we will push to make up some places tomorrow. Our pace looked good on the Medium, but on the Soft we didn’t quite have the pace to challenge for P1 today.
He continued: "The lap was a bit scrappy, but overall, the feeling wasn’t great which happens, especially when you’ve had limited running time in practice.
"We still don’t have a clear picture of everyone’s race pace so I hope we have a strong Sprint Race as that would be a positive sign for Sunday."
His team-mate Carlos Sainz echoed Leclerc's words while he also stressed that he expects his SF-24 to display strong pace in high-fuel configuration.
"It was a very tight Sprint Qualifying and overall the session wasn’t too bad. We did good laps in SQ1 and SQ2 with the Medium tyre, but we missed a bit with the Soft. On the last flying lap in SQ3 it was all about the slightest of details but we still have tomorrow to go at it again.
"On the race pace I think we could be competitive so I expect an interesting Sprint Race tomorrow where we will fight to gain some positions."
