Carlos Sainz Jr was out-qualified by his Scuderia Toro Rosso team-mate Daniil Kvyat on Saturday at the Baku Street Circuit, and admitted he would have preferred to have come into qualifying feeling more confident than he did.
The Spaniard was twelfth fastest in qualifying, just behind his team-mate, but he will drop three places on the grid thanks to his penalty carried over from the Canadian Grand Prix, but after a disrupted pair of practice sessions on Friday, he came into qualifying under-prepared.
“I would’ve preferred to have felt a bit more confident going into this qualifying session,” said Sainz. “Yesterday we had a very interrupted and rough day and we didn’t get to do some proper running due to the yellow flags and traffic… So it was difficult to tune the car and get it to my liking.
“This meant that we went into qualifying with a bit of a compromise, not feeling fully confident, and in the end we’ve ended up paying for this. Having said that, I think that even if I had been totally confident with the car, Q3 was still extremely difficult today because of these long straights.”
Sainz is hopeful from fifteenth on the grid that he can make some moves up the order, and is looking to break into the points, even with the straight-line deficit the team face this weekend.
“Hopefully tomorrow is different and we’re able to get into a rhythm in the race – if we do this, I’m sure we can show some very good pace and move forward,” said Sainz.
“Unfortunately, I have a three-place grid penalty, but this track offers some good overtaking opportunities and we’re going to go for it!”
