Carlos Sainz Jnr says he was surprised to take his maiden Formula 1 pole, in his 150th grand prix, in changeable, wet conditions at Silverstone.
Despite claiming that “Spaniards, we struggle a bit more with this rain,” Sainz was able to improve on his final lap in Q3, while team mate Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen were unable to beat their own previous times following a spin for Leclerc on his final effort.
Sainz said that he had not expected his lap to be good enough to top the times, as drivers struggled with intermittent heavy rain. “It was a good lap but I was struggling a lot with the standing water, said Sainz.
“On the intermediate there was a lot more standing water on the racing line and it was easy to catch snaps and lose the lap. And also more difficult to get temperature into these intermediates with these conditions.
“In the end I put together a lap but I didn’t thought it was anything special but just put it on the board and see how it is and it was pole position, which came as a bit of a surprise.”
Sainz was seven hundredths of a second ahead of Verstappen, whose lap was affected by a yellow flag due to Leclerc spinning. However, he said that he believed he would be able to fight the Red Bull in the race.
“I think so, yeah,” said Sainz. “The pace has been there all weekend, except for FP3 that we had some issues that we think we have corrected them for quali. But if I base myself on my FP2 pace then we should be in a good position to try to hold onto it.
“I’m sure Max and Charles will put a lot of pressure but I will try my best of course.”
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2022 British Grand Prix
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