Before the race on Sunday, Leclerc is in fifth place with 158 points, ahead of Lando Norris with 154 and Sainz with 149.5 points.
Norris gave himself a good chance to jump Leclerc by qualifying third in Yas Marina, while Sainz will start fifth and Leclerc seventh.
Despite having a two-place lead over his team-mate, Sainz insists he doesn’t worry about his personal position and instead focuses on Ferrari’s slim chance of overtaking McLaren to third in the constructors’ championship.
“I have to do something strange that I don’t want because I don’t want a chance for McLaren to make progress with the designers,” he said.
“I just want to end the season at a high point.
“Today the homework has been done with a strong qualification, and tomorrow I will go very happy into the winter break with a strong race, regardless of where I end up in the championship, because being in the fight for P5 with Lando and Charles is that is “is her third year in the car and the chance to beat her already means it’s a positive year.
“And I just have to concentrate and finally get into a good season to confidently go into the winter break. And today it definitely helps.”
Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21
Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images
Sainz felt that qualifying in Abu Dhabi was further evidence of the move he made recently.
“In the last six or seven races in particular, I feel like I’ve got the best out of the car in almost every qualifying, and that’s something I’ve done a lot at McLaren in the last third of this season.
“To be honest, I’ve played strong qualifiers my entire career, with Max [Verstappen], Lando and Charles, and I never felt like I was losing anything to them.
“I just think in the last third I’ll do what I did in the McLaren and the Toro Rosso when I was on top.”
He was relieved to find performance when it came down to it after a disappointing first day in Abu Dhabi.
“On a Friday, I wasn’t home for the first time in six or seven races. I was really a little lost and we couldn’t understand why.
“Today we turned things around and I found a much easier car and thanks to the team I was able to adapt in that regard. It was quite a challenging qualification, but we managed to put it together.
“The handling of the tire was very important, not just changing the floor and the gearbox, but also putting on the racing gearbox, which definitely gave us some performance back.
“But the tire was a big deal. In Q2 I really pushed in Sector 1 and 2 and then always had problems in Sector 3, and for Q3 I managed to change my approach a bit and get a very solid Sector 3 and in the 1m22s, that was the goal for Q3. “
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https://formulaone.news/mclaren/bottas-makes-alfa-romeo-f1-debut-at-the-start-of-postseason-testing
