When the lights exit later at this time within the Method 1 Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. will roll off the road in P1, having captured pole place in an exhilarating qualifying session.
He may need the motive force behind him in P3 to thank for it.
That driver? Lando Norris, his former teammate at McLaren.
Throughout Sainz’s qualifying runs on Saturday, the Ferrari driver took an unorthodox line out of Flip 17 again to the beginning/end line, hugging the within wall on the exit of Flip 17. Whereas Alex Jacques and Jolyon Palmer famous in the course of the F1TV broadcast that the unusual racing line was hardly used — evidenced by the spray of mud Sainz left in his wake — the outcomes spoke for themselves, as Sainz took pole place.
Within the FIA Press Convention Sainz was requested about that distinctive path again to the road out of Flip 17, and credited Norris and his “iRacing” days because the inspiration.
“No, it’s only a Lando factor that he usually likes to do,” started Sainz. “I believe it’s from iRacing or one thing. He likes doing brief distance to the road. And I stated, properly, I lose nothing by, possibly if it’s quicker, possibly reducing a bit the space. Perhaps it offers me a thousand or two-thousandths of a second that I’m going to verify this time I don’t depart them on the market. And yeah, I keep in mind from our McLaren days he used to do it so much and I used to be a bit puzzled.”
Telemetry knowledge from F1-Tempo helps Sainz’s unorthodox strategy. Should you take a look at his quickest lap in Q3, and evaluate it to the lap from Max Verstappen, which was good for second, Sainz was faster popping out of Flip 17 and again to the beginning/end line:
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Sainz could have been puzzled then, however he was not puzzled on Saturday in Mexico Metropolis.
We’ll see if he wants that distinctive racing at any level in the primary occasion Sunday.
