Carlos Sainz admitted that he was relieved to overcome the Ferrari "mess" during the closing stages of Belgian Grand Prix qualifying. The Ferrari driver managed to go second quickest from Max Verstappen in the first runs in Q3, which put him on provisional pole due to a grid penalty for the Red Bull driver, but his second run was much less straightforward. "My Q3 run one was cleaner, both the out-lap was a bit of a mess playing with the tow and seeing who wanted to lead,” Sainz told media. "In the end, I had to lead and had no tow. It was a bit of a mess. But the first lap was good enough for P2, which I knew was going to give me the pole."
Gap to Red Bull "puzzling" says Sainz
Even though Sainz will start from pole, it was Max Verstappen who finished the session quickest by 0.632 but he will start from the back due to grid penalties. With such a big deficit that has been present throughout the weekend, Sainz says the pace from Verstappen and Red Bull this weekend has been "puzzling" for the team to understand. He added: "Still a bit puzzled to see this big gap to Max and Red Bull which makes me wonder what what's going to happen tomorrow in the race." Despite this Sainz is optimistic that Ferrari’s race pace is good enough for him to take his second career win. "I think our race pace is a bit better than our qualifying pace, but there's definitely something there to find. "We need to keep digging to see why Red Bull is so fast around this track and why we are trailing them, but to start from pole a good place to start and we will try and win from there tomorrow."
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