Bahrain International Circuit, Saturday 5 December

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after Qualifying for the Sakhir Grand Prix.

CARLOS SAINZ, #55

	FP3	0m54.720s (+0.656s)	16 laps	10th
	Q1	0m54.450s (Softs)		12th
	Q2	0m53.818s (Softs)		4th
	Q3	0m54.010s (Softs)		8th

“A very difficult day for us but I think we managed to save qualifying with very good execution and a very good performance. It hasn’t been an easy weekend for us, but we’ve taken steps in the right direction since yesterday, and today we managed to out-qualify a few cars that have been quicker all weekend, so we can be proud of that. We took good strategic decisions and put some very decent laps together. Tomorrow we expect a tough race, but we’ll fight hard to keep position and take advantage of any opportunity as every single point is key for the championship.”

LANDO NORRIS, #4

	FP3	0m54.606s (+0.542s)	15 laps	5th
	Q1	0m54.194s (Softs)		4th
	Q2	0m54.693s (Softs)		15th
	Q3	-

“A bad quali in lots of ways and we need to work out what went wrong. In Q2 the first run was okay, but the second one was a combination of not doing a great lap and also not going out at the right time. We had to do a very slow out-lap to not catch any traffic, but while doing so the tyres got too cold and then it just got a bit messy from there. I couldn’t put the lap together with one lap of fuel. On the track, I needed to simplify it a little bit. We just made a small mistake and it cost us today. It’s going to make our life a bit more difficult tomorrow, but we’ll give it everything to score some points.”

ANDREAS SEIDL, Team Principal

“We have mixed feelings this evening after qualifying. The team here at the circuit, back at the MTC and the drivers did a good job improving the car for today after we weren’t really competitive in yesterday’s sessions. This gave us something to fight with for a position in Q3 today.”

“Well done to Carlos for progressing through the sessions. P8 gives us a good starting slot from which we can score good points. On Lando’s side, we couldn’t get the laps in during Q2, which leaves him down in P15 – but nobody scores points on Saturday. We’re expecting another grand prix with interesting tyre and strategy choices, which opens up opportunities for him to fight back.”

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