Ferrari acknowledge that McLaren are quicker in Sao Paulo

On the back of another fairly encouraging sprint qualifying session, Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have acknowledged that McLaren have been a step ahead so far in Sao Paulo.

Ferrari had a slow start to its Sao Paulo F1 weekend, struggling for pace on the fully-resurfaced track. However, the Scuderia got its act together for the all-imporant sprint qualifying, and they were just outshone by a very quick McLaren car.

Charles Leclerc ultimately ended up third on the grid, having been just over two tenths of a second slower than what pole-sitter Oscar Piastri managed. The Monegasque noted that his P3 result was the maximum he could have hoped for in yesterday's short qualifying session.

"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."

His team-mate Carlos Sainz did not fully enjoy the opening day at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, labelling his day as "challenging". The Spaniard, who took a dominant victory at last Sunday's Mexico City Grand Prix, ended up 5th for the Sao Paulo F1 Sprint.

"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."

Commenting on a fairly strong showing in sprint qualifying, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has acknowledged that McLaren had been the fastest package so far in Sao Paulo.

"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."