Carlos Sainz continues to make progress as he finds his feet at the Williams Formula 1 team, and having qualified eighth in Bahrain he followed up with sixth place in Jeddah.
He was gifted a place by Lando Norris’s crash, but nevertheless on both occasions he has outpaced the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda.
Bahrain ended in frustration for the Spaniard with damage from a collision with Tsunoda, and he was also penalised for forcing Kimi Antonelli off the track.
With that very much on his mind he concedes that he’s looking at a more conservative approach on Sunday’s race, when big points could be up for grabs for anyone who sees the chequered flag in one piece.
“Honestly, after Friday, I saw a very big difference in race pace between the top cars and the midfield,” he said of his race prospects.
“It seems like the top cars managed to overheat the tyres a lot less than the midfield. So I expect a very difficult race tomorrow to keep the two or three cars that I have clearly quicker behind me.
“I need to think a bit about it, think a bit good tonight. Think about whether I put on a good fight like I did in Bahrain with them, and challenge them and make myself as wide as possible, or pick better my fights.
“In the heat of the battle it will be tough to stay disciplined, but my feeling tells me probably tomorrow is a better day to live to fight another day, and give myself a good chance of finishing in the points.”
Given that history suggests that Jeddah is a race of high attrition that rewards patience, staying clear of trouble would seem to be a good strategy.
“Yeah, I agree,” he said when I put that to him. “It’s a race that requires patience; it requires discipline on staying just one step away from the wall. Today, definitely, I enjoyed pushing the limits of the car in such a demanding track, getting myself comfortable around these walls at these speeds.
“We’re going with a car that still feels not very familiar to me, but I discovered lots of new things, and tomorrow I hope to do the same, put together a solid race, and bring home the first big haul of points for Williams from my side, which is the target.
“At the same time, we’re still only in race five, and we seem to be making good progress. So step-by-step.”
Beating a Red Bull and a Ferrari twice in two qualifying sessions is a sign of progress, even if both drivers – like Carlos himself – are still in the process of adjusting to an unfamiliar car.
“Definitely another good weekend so far, right from the start of FP1,” he said. “Feeling a step better and going in the right direction with setup and driving, still having to think a lot to pull some good lap together, but definitely feeling more at home and more comfortable with things.
“Happy and proud with the progress that we’re making, with the direction we’re following, as you said, second weekend in a row, that we must be quite close to the limit of the car, given that we managed to beat a Red Bull and a Ferrari, and obviously McLaren with a crash.
“So yeah, let’s keep going in that direction, keep following the same philosophy, one step at a time, and it will come as it’s coming little-by-little.”
The fact that between them Sainz and his team mate Alex Albon are regularly getting inside the top 10 at a variety of venues has to be a positive sign.
“This is a very confidence-driven circuit,” he said. “You need a lot of confidence to hustle the car around the walls at the speeds that we’re going, and you need to trust the car.
“And I feel like definitely, this weekend, I’m a step closer to being comfortable, given that it’s a very high confidence track, I’ve been competitive. So it shows the progress.
“And the direction we’re going is the positive one. At the same time, I’m sure there will be a lot more setbacks where I will need to learn from, try set-up directions or driving styles that I’ll get wrong.
“But trial and error will keep working and give me the awareness of what I need to do to be quick with this car. For now, it’s definitely paying.”
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Adam Cooper F1 