Carlos Sainz has expressed his satisfaction at his performance in today’s Qualifying session as the Spaniard managed to out-qualify teammate Charles Leclerc for the eighth time this season.

The final Qualifying session of Sainz’s first season at Ferrari saw the Spaniard briefly top the times in Q2 after gambling on the soft tyres whilst leading pair Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen initially stayed out on the medium tyres.

Sainz carried that momentum into Q3 with a superb final run that was good enough for fifth on the grid ahead of Valtteri Bottas and team leader Leclerc who was over a tenth down on the Madrid native.

''I am pretty satisfied with my performance today, after yesterday was one of the most difficult Fridays in a long time and we’ve managed to recover well. We worked hard to put together a competitive car so my thanks to the entire team. This session confirms I’ve made solid progress in qualifying since the beginning of the year, so that’s another positive from today. Sector three was key: not pushing the tyres too much in the first two sectors and going for it at the end translated into a good lap.’’

However, Sainz felt that he could have got more out of the session, considering the gap between him and third place man and former McLaren teammate Lando Norris was a mere +0.061. 

But despite this setback, Sainz is ready to fight his way through the pack so that he can finish his season on a high and help Ferrari secure third place in the constructors' championship.

''Looking at the timesheet, it could have been even better since Lando is only a few hundredths of a second ahead of me. Tomorrow in the race it’s not going to be easy to pass but we will try our best to give him a good fight and gain some positions. I want to end my first season with Scuderia Ferrari on a high. Let’s go racing!’’