Carlos Sainz is on pole position for the first time thanks to involuntary help from a marksman, and he wasn’t expecting it at all
In his 151st attempt, Carlos Sainz broke the curse and took his first pole position in Formula 1. In the rain at Silverstone he beat Max Verstappen and his team-mate Charles Leclerc and was surprised himself: “My lap was actually nothing special,” he says. But because Leclerc, of all people, messed up his own lap and Verstappen’s with a spin, it was enough.
Verstappen was on his way to his third pole position of the season and was already 0.643 seconds ahead of Sainz after the first sector, but the Red Bull driver ran into a yellow flag in the second sector and was unable to improve his time enough to knock Sainz off pole.
Curious: Sainz’s team-mate Charles Leclerc, of all people, had spun in the Chapel curve and thus involuntarily performed teamwork. According to him, there was simply a lot of standing water at this point.
“I’m happy for Carlos, but unfortunately I made a mistake on my last lap,” said Leclerc. “I knew I had to get everything together on that exact lap, but I didn’t manage to do that as a driver and from that point of view I didn’t deserve the pole. “
Sainz blind to pole
Sainz had no idea about any of this at the time. “I didn’t know where I would qualify,” said the Spaniard. “The conditions kept changing and I didn’t know what lap time I had to beat. “
“There are no two laps where the conditions are like the lap before. Every lap is a new adventure,” says the Ferrari driver, who found qualifying difficult as a result. “Especially in Q3, I found it hard to get a lap together. There was a lot of standing water on the racing line and it was quite difficult to get the tyres up to temperature.”
For him it was a bit of a gamble and he just wanted to get a couple of fast laps in at the end and then see what came out of it. The final lap of 1:40.983 was the decisive one, but Sainz didn’t like it: “It didn’t feel fantastic,” he admits.
A lot of little things – and it still fits!
Because there were a lot of little things on the lap that didn’t fit. “I made a little mistake in turn 3, which put me a bit off the line in turn 4,” Sainz describes. “And then I ran out of battery in turns 15 and 16.”
Given the circumstances, Sainz was convinced it wouldn’t be enough for pole position. “But it was enough,” he says. Because Leclerc and Verstappen stayed in their positions after Leclerc’s spin, and Sergio Perez & Co. were simply not fast enough.
When the news came over the radio that he had finished first for the first time in his career, he was suitably surprised but happy. “Of course I was happy to hear that,” said Sainz. “The lap wasn’t perfect though, but in these conditions it’s mostly about putting in a good lap.”
“To get the first pole is always special. And to do it in the rain at Silverstone feels really good. “
