Carlos Sainz Jnr mentioned the bizarre line he took on the finish of his pole place lap was one he realized from former crew mate Lando Norris.
The Ferrari driver averted the traditional racing line as he completed his flying laps at this time, protecting a fractionally shorter distance to the timing line.
Sainz believes Norris developed the method in driving simulator iRacing. He mentioned he realized it from his rival when the pair have been crew mates at McLaren in 2019 and 2020.
“It’s only a Lando factor that he usually likes to do,” mentioned Sainz. “I feel it’s from iRacing or one thing. He likes doing a brief distance to the road and I mentioned properly, I lose nothing, perhaps if it’s quicker chopping a bit the gap, perhaps it provides me a thousand or two thousandths of a second, I’m going to verify this time I don’t depart them on the market.
“I bear in mind from our McLaren days he used to do it loads and I used to be a bit puzzled.”
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez shouldn’t be an official-licensed circuit for iRacing. Nonetheless the identical method has been utilized by some drivers at different tracks with related ultimate corners.
Sainz beat Max Verstappen to pole place by two-tenths of a second, so the bizarre line was not decisive. The pole winner mentioned getting the tyre temperatures excellent had been key.
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“Tyre preparation has been a scorching matter in Ferrari the previous few races as a result of we really feel like within the race we’re at all times very sturdy, however we appear to lack one thing come qualifying. This 12 months’s automotive is excellent on tyres, however I feel that typically it implies that in quali you can’t perhaps extract the utmost out of the tyres within the first timed lap on the delicate tyres.
“I put a little bit of concentrate on that in the course of the three-week break and got here into Austin and Mexico with a few issues that appeared to repay.”
Each of Sainz’s laps in Q3 have been fast sufficient for pole place. He mentioned the outcome was “very candy.”
“It’s not regular to have such two sturdy laps round Mexico. There’s plenty of sliding within the lap, very tough to place a lap collectively, and truly my two laps of Q3 have been nearly each excellent.
“I’m very blissful to be on pole and to verify the nice type from Austin. In Austin already that final lap of Q3 was coming good [before he encountered yellow flags]. So I had excessive hopes coming into Mexico and we’ve managed to stick with it.”
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2024 Mexican Grand Prix
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