Ferrari highlight silver linings after McLaren dominate in Brazil

Carlos Sainz has identified a saving grace after McLaren dominated sprint qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The 30-year-old will line up fifth for the one-third distance race at Interlagos, whilst Charles Leclerc will go from third.

Meanwhile, McLaren locked-out the front row. Oscar Piastri, on pole, was over a quarter of a second clear of the Spaniard’s Ferrari team-mate.

However, Sainz pointed out how the previous sprint event, in Austin to start off the current triple-header, saw Ferrari struggle on Friday.

The Scuderia ultimately went on to clinch a one-time finish in the grand prix at the Circuit of the Americas.

“It was super tricky with the track temperature dropping, the tyres were really difficult to get in the window,” Sainz told F1TV when reviewing the opening day in Brazil.

“We had a good improvement in SQ2 with the medium [tyre], we only did one lap on those tyres, which will serve us well the rest of the weekend.

“And then on the soft, a bit of lap time to find, but in Austin I remember we were weak on soft on Friday, and then for qualifying we managed to find some extra.

“So that is the plan – to try and find, for tomorrow in qualifying, something more in the soft [tyre].”

Meanwhile, despite being unable to match the pace of Piastri or Lando Norris, Leclerc shared his satisfaction at delivering the best result possible on a day in which the Italian team was outmatched.

“I’m happy because we have maximised the result. I don’t think anything was there to do better,” the 27-year-old reflected.

“The McLaren are so fast, so we are a little bit on the back foot this weekend and it will be important to take strong points anyway.”

When asked if McLaren was out of reach for the rest of the weekend, he replied: “I don’t like saying it like this so early on in the weekend, so we’ll give it everything to put the challenge on them, but seeing the pace they’ve shown, I think they were particularly strong.”