Carlos Sainz reveals Williams experiment behind strong Qatar GP qualifying

Carlos Sainz explains how simulator work and an experimental Qatar set-up created a strong weekend for the Spaniard

Carlos Sainz says the strong performance seen in qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix was the result of an experiment that has been in the making since the team struggled at the Hungarian Grand Prix earlier this season.

The Spaniard had a strong showing at the Losail circuit today, qualifying seventh, leading the midfield. After a points finish in the sprint race, he's continued what he described as a "very solid" few days for the Grove outfit.

“Yeah, we took another step in that direction in quali and it seemed to, again, do some steps in the right direction,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1. “Overall, honestly just happy with the weekend so far, we've been very solid, a point in the sprint, position better now in quali and a top seven going into the race.

"If you would have told me before the weekend, I would have not believed it, so I think it's been a very good weekend up until now.”

Sainz continued, adding that he believed he extracted the maximum potential of his machinery.

“Three good laps in quali, I hit 20.2 in Q2 and then I felt like I just couldn't get any quicker than 20.2, felt like that was the limit of the car and in Q3 even with that scare of the plastic and damaging the bodywork and having to repair, I don't know if I was carrying any damage or not, but after that scare, managing to hit the 20.2 and being P7, I take it and we're very strong,” he said.

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The result comes off the back of a decision by Sainz and Williams to use Qatar as a test bed for an experimental set-up, knowing that this circuit would yield a challenging weekend.

“Yeah, I've been pushing hard since Budapest. We had a very off weekend at this kind of track corner, to say let's make sure we use this year as a learning and try something in Qatar, because in Qatar in theory we should suffer, it should be a very tricky weekend for us,” he explained.

“So let's make sure we put a plan together, we test, I had some ideas in the simulator that I wanted to test, the team came up with other ideas, we put them all together, we went to the simulator, we tested the car and that gave us what we believe was maybe potentially a good baseline maybe to start the weekend and give it a bit of a go.

“And right from the get-go it was working well this weekend and it has given us a good understanding, good learnings and confidence because as a team it's important to do these sort of tests and get them to work.”