The two Spanish riders will meet at the first braking of the Bahrain GP. Sainz starts fourth and Alonso, fifth. The Ferrari driver overcame a poor Grand Prix start and is aiming for the best possible result, including victory: “I am the fourth most likely to…”, recognize. Although the fear in the Italian garage is that Aston Martin will take away the race pace it showed in practice and become as unattainable as Red Bull: “It’s going to be a very fun race, I think Fernando has a lot of race pace. That is where the Aston Martin becomes even more dangerous. We are going to have fun”.
The fight for a podium between Sainz and Alonso is new: “We have never collided (jokes). Other times we have fought, but we were eighth and ninth and now we are fourth and fifth and We’ll both go on the attack.” Does the Aston Martin surprise you so close? “We already knew, there are no secrets in F1 with GPS data. We knew they would be fast. We have beaten them in qualifying, but in the race we expect them to have less degradation and It’s going to be a tough Sunday. But I always go to the races thinking that I can win them”.
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Just behind the two Spaniards in seventh position is Lewis Hamilton with a beaten Mercedes by its first cousin, the AMR23. “They have half of our car”, says Sir Lewis on the rear end (power unit, gearbox and suspension) from Ferdinand’s car. The Englishman is happy: “Not fantastic (for Mercedes), but i’m happy for aston (Martin). The progress they have made is incredible. I am very happy for Fernando, He’s been here a lot longer than me and it’s good that he’s ahead. I hope we have good races.”
Strategy and Red Bull: “A step and a half ahead”
The man from Madrid sees Red Bull far: “There are both Red Bulls, clearly one step ahead in qualifying and it would put them a step and a half in the race, which makes it even more complicated. But the races must be run on the attack and see how each one degrades. We already know that this is not our strong point, but we have an opportunity”. The strategy this Sunday seems clear: soft (C3), hard (C1) and hard tires in three ‘stints’ to save the enormous degradation on a rough asphalt that makes the tires suffer. The medium (C2) has not been competitive in Friday’s sessions and it is possible that many teams will try to skip it.
Sainz had started the weekend on the wrong foot, uncomfortable with certain aspects of the Ferrari that did not remind him of the good feelings in the tests. He already seems solved: “On Friday it was time to suffer, A few strange ones happened that we are still analyzing because they made me lose rhythm and sensations. I went into qualifying one step behind where I would like to be butI have been going up, recovering the sensations. I haven’t stayed far, but I don’t have wheels for the race and in the first ‘stint’ will have to suffer, it will penalize us. I think most of them are like me, except Charles (which saved a new soft) and some Red Bull. We will try to fight.”