Carlos Sainz feels “in a good place” after Friday Practice at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Grid penalties for Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc mean the Spaniard and Sergio Perez could be alone in fighting for victory at Spa Francorchamps.
And on Friday, Sainz make a strong start by setting the pace in Practice 1 but would slip back to P5 in the second session.
“Overall it was a good Friday,” he stated in the paddock. “I know the end result was not looking very competitive, [but] honestly, today I was happy with the car.
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“In FP1 I felt comfortable with the balance of the car. For FP2 we tried some changes which didn’t really work as expected and we lost the feeling a bit.
“But if you give me back the car from FP1, I’m pretty sure we can be on the pace tomorrow.
“The long run pace was okay, so I believe we are in a good place for the rest of the weekend.”
While Verstappen may not be direct competition for pole or victory, Sainz is still confident Ferrari can match the impressive pace the Dutchman showed.
“It is true that Verstappen looked pretty quick today, especially in FP2,” he acknowledged. “In the long run we were closer, but he seems to be on it this weekend.
Back on track ?
#essereFerrari ? #BelgianGP pic.twitter.com/bX8G6MYqNv— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) August 26, 2022
“I’m confident we know where to find the lap time for tomorrow [but] we’re going to have to extract the maximum out of [the car].”
As for Ferrari teammate Leclerc, he felt drawing conclusions from Friday was difficult with mixed up results in both sessions.
“Overall it wasn’t too bad of a day,” he said. “Very different to compare on this first day coming back from the holidays, but overall the feeling was quite okay.
“It’s still difficult to determine the pecking order for this weekend as all the teams ran completely different programmes.”
Given he too will take a grid penalty, the Monegasque revealed he was also among those not running a typical Friday plan.
“Well, let’s say we did not put as much attention as we normally do on the qualifying pace,” he admitted.
“It would be a little bit useless. So yeah, more attention to the race pace to try and come back at the front as quickly as possible, so let’s wait and see.
“We completed a solid number of laps while running in variable conditions, with rain coming and going in different parts of the track. Low fuel pace seems to be poor, but the high fuel seems to be quite okay.”