Sainz feared F1 qualifying debut for Ferrari “was over” after Q1 issue

Ferrari Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz feared his Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying session “was over” after his car suffered a shutdown at the end of Q1.

On his debut qualifying outing for Ferrari, Sainz had narrowly secured his place in Q2 when his SF21 car suddenly switched off as he slowed down on his out-lap to return to the pits.

The Spaniard was able to crawl back to the pits before he returned to action in the second session and went on to progress to Q3. Sainz ultimately secured eighth place on the grid and was happy with his recovery after his Q1 scare.

“I’m happy to be here [in Q3], mainly because I thought that after that situation there the whole car switched off, and I thought that was qualifying was over for me,” Sainz said. “So the fact that we are in Q3 is already a decent result.

“We had that very big shock in Q1, with the car turning off, but thankfully I could start it again and made it to the pits. It’s not always easy to recover from that, but we managed to have a very strong Q2.

“I’m obviously not happy with my last attempt in Q3. I went for it, but I’m probably lacking a bit more knowledge on the car and I couldn’t put together a clean lap. It is what it is.

“In general, though, I’m happy. I’ve been improving throughout the sessions, with good pace and very few mistakes so I want to keep gaining experience with the car and building confidence on a one-timed lap.”

And Sainz is hopeful that Ferrari can earn a strong result in the season-opener in Bahrain after getting both its cars well inside the top-10.

“I think in terms of race pace the others have a bit of an edge on us, but at the same time you know we've qualified well, we put two cars in a top eight,” he explained.

“I should have been a bit further forward with a better lap. But it is what it is, and at the moment I'm gonna think that tomorrow we have a good chance and that we do a good job with the strategy, we can have a strong result.”

Teammate Charles Leclerc turned in an excellent lap to snatch fourth place, though the Monegasque admitted the pace of midfield rivals AlphaTauri has him worried heading into Sunday’s race.

“I think AlphaTauri is very strong in the race pace with what they’ve shown on Friday, and they are starting on the medium [tyres] too, so it’s going to be very difficult to keep them behind,” he said.

“I don’t think the first three are reachable yet for us, but with a bit more work, hopefully soon we will be able to fight with them.”