Sixth, Sainz "became one" with his Williams at Imola

If it is usually Alexander albon which we salute for quality performances at the wheel of a Williams, the time has come for Carlos Sainz to show himself too! The Spanish driver will start Sunday from the third row of the grid at Imola, alongside his childhood idol, Fernando Alonso. After recounting, at the start of the season, his difficulties in really feeling at home in the cockpit of his Williams FW47, Sainz seems to have made great progress in this area in recent weeks. To the point of having been able to extract almost all of the potential from his car this Saturday on a circuit as demanding as Imola.

"I'm very happy today, I felt at one with the car on a circuit where you really need to have a lot of confidence.", did he declare on the official F1 website. “I managed to set some good laps, but unfortunately our fastest lap didn't make it to Q3. We took a bit of a risk by starting late, and we simply missed time. I had to set a very fast exit lap, battling other cars. The potential should have been around 1:15, but we had to settle for 0:1.”

Unlike Alonso (and third-placed George Russell), Carlos Sainz ran his entire qualifying session on soft tires. These are the ones with the best single-lap potential, of course, but they are also the softest tires available in Pirelli's range. Other drivers, such as Max Verstappen for example, talked about the need to manage the tires on a qualifying lap, and this could become an advantage for Sainz in the race, who will have plenty of new mediums this Sunday. Enough to overtake Fernando Alonso? Not so quickly, because the double world champion generally doesn't want to let himself be pushed around when he feels he can achieve a good result...

"Honestly, we would have just passed theAston Martin, we would have found ourselves a little bit alone. At the same time, I am optimistic, and the Aston used mediums, which are better tires, in qualifying. I hope that tomorrow with a new set we can overtake it. I am very happy with Saturday, I would just have preferred to start fifth on Sunday. We know that we have to keep the rest of the midfield under control, and try to fight with the cars in front. Fernando will be very difficult to beat, we know that, because he is very good in the race. Then, as I said, he used medium tires, and it is not yet clear as to the strategy, will it be necessary to make one or two stops. Things will happen on Sunday.

Join us at 15pm this Sunday to see what will happen at Imola!

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