Fifteenth place for Carlos Sainz in Chinese GP Qualifying

Saturday, 22 March 2024
- Sprint: P17, 19 laps
- Qualifying: P15, 1:31.840, 15 laps

• Carlos Sainz is set to start the Chinese GP from the fifteenth place of the grid after a Qualifying session in which he didn’t feel comfortable in his Williams FW47.
• The Spanish race driver made significant changes to his set-up after the Sprint race, after assessing that the configuration chosen after Friday’s practice session could be improved.
• Carlos made it through Q1 (1:31.628) with a lap-time that was six tenths faster than his Sprint Qualifying reference, but in Q2 he lost the feeling and this prevented him from improving any further (1:31.840).
• The Spaniard hopes that the new set-up pays off in tomorrow’s race after the experience gathered earlier this morning in the Sprint, where he saw that tyre degradation and graining are likely going to play a big role in the race.

QUOTES:
“Still struggling with the same issues during Qualifying. As soon as I begin to push I lose the feeling with the car in certain corners and struggle to improve the total lap time. I’m trying to make the most out of it, but the reality is that I am unfortunately not there yet, especially in the last sector. I know I’ll end up getting there with the car, it’s now a matter of shortening the process as much as possible. Regarding tomorrow’s race, we’ve made some big set-up changes to the car and hopefully we will be in better shape than this morning. Graining will again be key, so let’s see what we can achieve".

COMING UP:
Sunday, 23 March 2025
- Race: 15:00 local time (08:00 CET)