F1 Qatar GP | Williams, Sainz seventh: "Qualifying on the limit, I'm satisfied."

lusail – Another great result for Carlos Sainz in the qualifications of Qatar The Spaniard had already scored a point in the Sprint Race, finishing the mini race in eighth position.

In the Sprint, the Spaniard will start from the dirty side of the track, while for Sunday's race he will line up on the clean side, in seventh place, something Sainz himself is pleased about in the post-qualifying session. Despite some difficulties—he was the one who caused a red flag when a sticker from the pit floor stuck to his car and remained on the track—Sainz remained focused, still extracting the maximum from the car. However, things went poorly. Alexander albon: after tenth place in the Sprint, the Thai driver finished fifteenth in qualifying.

Sainz: "I think I got the most out of the car."

“Another good session and I'm happy with seventh place: we'll start from the clean side of the track, which is what I wanted, I'm very happy. We did a lot of laps in the 20.2s; that was our limit. We've taken another step in the right direction and I think I got the most out of the car today,” said the Spaniard. “In Q3, the sticker on the garage floor stuck to my wheel and caused damage to the bodywork as it unfolded, but despite this I still managed to put in a solid lap on my last attempt and secure a good starting position for tomorrow. We expect a good battle in the midfield, and with two mandatory pit stops, some interesting strategies await. I'm confident we can run a strong race and hopefully bring some more points to the team. Let the race begin!”

Albon: "I struggled to get the tyres into the right window."

“We made some balance and set-up changes after the Sprint, and the car felt better in qualifying, which is a positive thing to take into account. Ultimately, we just didn't have the grip today; I was sliding a bit and struggled to get the tires into the right operating window in Q2. We found we had decent grip with the tires used in Q1, so we'll look at the operating windows and our out-laps to better understand the performance. Overtaking was difficult on this track during the Sprint; it was a quiet race with little action from me. As a team, we didn't expect this track to suit us particularly well, but I'm optimistic for tomorrow and will see what we can do during the race to make up some positions.”