Sainz gambles on wet set up

Carlos Sainz will be hoping for rain in Austria, given he has opted for a wet set up on his Toro Rosso for the race.

The Spaniard was fast in the wet FP3 session on Saturday morning and was hoping that form would feed through to the afternoon qualifying session. However, the rain didn’t come and the track dried out through the hour, relegating the Toro Rosso to 13th.

“A bit of a disappointing qualifying session for me today, especially because we’ve chosen the wet set-up for today which will make tomorrow’s race complicated unless it rains,” said Sainz.

“It’s a shame, because I have been quick throughout the whole weekend and the first part of qualifying, but when it came to the moment that counted I got stuck in traffic in the first and second sectors and that ruined my lap.

“I hope it rains tomorrow because if not it will be a very complicated race due to the downforce level we’ve chosen. Overtaking will also be difficult but, obviously, I will try my best.”

Team mate Max Verstappen once again appeared in the top ten, in seventh place and will be aiming to achieve points once again with a number of faster cars starting behind him including both the sister Red Bull cars and Kimi Raikkonen.

“I’m happy with P7, I think it’s a good result. Q1 was very difficult. We started on the Intermediate tyres and then we switched to the Super Softs even though the track wasn’t completely dry and some braking zones still had some wet spots,” said Verstappen.

“It was easy to lock-up but I took it easy, avoided making any mistakes and got through to Q2. The track was dry then so you could do your own lines and the car was working very well.

“I think we’ve been showing good pace all weekend and even though it will be a difficult race for us on the straights, we can get a bit of an advantage in sectors two and three and fight for points again.”

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