The Italian team didn’t want to have to start on the soft tire on Sunday, so both drivers concentrated on using the middle tire in Q2.
They finished the session in 11th and 12th with Sainz ahead of Leclerc and couldn’t get away with it. Meanwhile, Russell – who followed Williams’ same strategy with mid-size tires – finished 10th in the second quarter, just 0.006 seconds ahead of Sainz.
The Spaniard was later promoted to 10th place on the grid after Sebastian Vettel received a three-place penalty for obstructing Fernando Alonso in qualifying.
Both Ferrari drivers admitted that the team did not expect Russell to be that fast and that he would at least have made it into Q3 had it not been for Sainz.
“Starting with a soft one [in the race] was definitely the plan we wanted to avoid, ”Leclerc told Motorsport.com.
“So we tried a medium, it didn’t work. I’m a bit disappointed because of course it’s a surprise to see the Williams in front of us today. It would have been ideal to pull through with the medium tires, but it didn’t work for us.
“Not the perfect round. But when you see Carlos and my lap times, they’re very, very close together. I think of course I could have done a little better here and there. Probably he could have done a little better here and there. But we were more or less at the limit of the car. And that was possible today. “
Sainz admitted the team risked not making it into Q3 by opting for the slower tire.
“Yeah, we knew, but we preferred to be on the Medium P11 than the Soft P5 and that was priority number one,” he told Motorsport.com.
“And we decided to do it. In fact, I wasn’t six thousandth in Q3 with any medium, and maybe I was aiming to get it into the top 7. But it is what it is.
“I’m sure we can find six thousandths in this round. I was outqualified by Russell last week. In order for Williams to be quick, he was eighth last week. Obviously he’s doing a very good job to keep Williams up to speed and I congratulate him.
“But it’s not that we didn’t get the maximum out of it because they looked fast last week. I mean what are six thousandths?
“So we have to put everything into perspective and know that for some reason our strength is on this track tomorrow, and last Sunday we were very happy after a difficult Saturday so let’s see if we can get it back.
“I also feel like I’ve improved compared to last weekend. I was a little wrong in that qualification, to be honest. I was happy to see progress on the same track from one weekend to the next.
“I see how my engineering team and I keep finding a bit of lap time in this car from one weekend to the next, and that will hopefully lead to a good race pace, so let’s see.”
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Leclerc also admitted that the racing pace the cars showed at the Styrian GP last weekend encouraged the team for today.
“That definitely gives us confidence,” said Leclerc. “But on the other hand we have some cars in front of us that have a similar strategy to ours because they qualified with a medium in Q3, so it won’t be easy. ”
Regarding the work the team has done to resolve their tire issues, Sainz added: “We are still not fully convinced, especially if the track temperature drops tomorrow it could reveal a bit of our current limitation.
“At the same time, we should be aware that we still have a small problem there that we have not yet fully resolved. But at the same time we didn’t suffer from it last week and we were really strong.
“Tomorrow we’ll see everyone happy or sad, and today it’s only 24 hours of pain just because we didn’t go through six thousandths.”
Ferrari Sports Director Laurent Mekies confirmed that the team had built its entire weekend on avoiding the track for the race.
“We came here with the idea that the C5 would not be suitable for us in the race,” he said. “We know that under certain circumstances we have more tire wear than the competition and when we came here with the softer compound we didn’t think the C5 would work for us in the race. And that’s why we designed our weekend so that we don’t have to drive it in the race. “
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