Carlos Sainz thought pole position was on the cards through the first sector of his final Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix qualifying run on Saturday at Monza, but understeer and balance issues proved costly.
The top six at Monza on Saturday were a tightly packed bunch, covered by just 0.186s.
Sainz wound up fifth in the final order, just 0.140s off of polesitter Lando Norris, but a purple Sector 1 on his final run had the Ferrari driver believing he could fight for top honours.
Alas, understeer later on in the lap put an end to Sainz’s pole pursuit as he explained how sensitive his car was amid a slight shift in the weather during the Q3 top-10 shootout.
“In Q3 this cloud started to arrive, the temperature started to drop, the grip was a lot higher,” explained Sainz.
“That’s why we just saw us going a lot quicker in Q3. But unfortunately, yeah, in our car it just induced a lot of understeering in the two Lesmos and Parabolica, and it meant that we couldn’t get the car turned.
“[I] did a good purple Sector 1 in that last lap, which I thought I was on for pole, but then even if we added a lot of balance, a lot of flap to the car in the last run, in the Lesmos and Parabolica gave me a big understeer and I couldn’t get the car turned.
“The lap didn’t quite do what it was supposed to do. It’s frustrating, because it’s one tenth and a half.
“When you see the gaps and you realise that if we maybe would have made the balance on the high-speed, we could have been fighting for it.
“But I guess it’s going to be a similar situation for everyone, and it just shows how sensitive these cars are to anything that happens in the weather.”
Even with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez a few tenths adrift of the top six in qualifying, Sainz has predicted a tough race will be on the cards for the top eight runners across McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
Sainz qualified on pole at Monza last term and was able to convert into a third-place finish.
If his predictions prove correct, a final Italian GP podium in Ferrari colours will all come down to how the Spaniard’s SF24 handles its tyres throughout the Grand Prix.
“We are all within a couple of tenths,” Sainz said.
“The thing is that I think tomorrow is going to be all about who manages the graining better.
“I think it’s going to be a very tough, very tight race across eight cars, and it’s going to be all about seeing who manages to get rid of the graining for tomorrow, because once the graining appears, we have one or two seconds of drop off, which is never seen before.”
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