- Carlos Sainz and Laia Sanz had set the second-fastest time in Qualifying 1, but in the second session, they encountered an issue in the power-steering of the Odyssey 21.
The ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team finished in fourth place in the Qualifying session of the Island X Prix, meaning that Carlos Sainz and Laia Sanz will be tomorrow at the starting grid of the Semi-Final 2.
ASXE Team has positioned itself as one of the fastest teams in Sardinia, as it was shown in the performance of the drivers in Qualifying 1, where they set the second-fastest time overall.
But in Qualifying 2 the roughness of the track took its toll on the Odyssey 21, which lost its power steering. This deprived Carlos and Laia of maintaining the speed they had in the previous session.
These results left the team in fourth place with 10 points, eight of them coming from Qualifying 1 and the other two from Qualifying 2. These Qualifying points are not taken into consideration for the championship, but they are used to define the starting grids of the races.
The ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will be racing against Rosberg X Racing and ABT Cupra XE in the Semi-Final 2. The first two cars to cross the finish line will move to the Final, where they will be able to fight for the overall victory of the Island X Prix.
Quotes
Carlos Sainz, driver:
"I have a bittersweet feeling at this moment. Qualifying 1 was pretty good because we finished second, but in Qualifying 2 we ran into several issues that dragged us back and that cost us a lot of time. In the end, we qualified in fourth place. This Sunday we will race in the Semi-Final 2 against strong competition, but we will give our best, as we always do".
Laia Sanz, driver:
"We finished fourth in Qualifying. We were second in Qualifying 1 and we were pretty satisfied with that because both myself and Carlos had a really good pace. It is a shame what happened in the afternoon. It is a bittersweet feeling because we couldn’t hold on to the pace that we wanted due to an issue in the steering. This cost us some time, but we are still optimistic going into Sunday because we know our pace is there. We want to leave this X Prix with a good result. Hopefully, we will do a good semi-final and we will qualify for the final".
Albert Fàbrega, team principal:
"The day started really well for us with a fantastic second place in Qualifying 1, where both Carlos and Laia showed great speed in a car that is performing really well here in Sardinia. Sadly, in Qualifying 2 we encountered an issue in the steering of the car and this meant both drivers were not able to finish their laps in the best possible condition, which ultimately cost us time. Anyway, we finish the day in fourth place. We are convinced that with our pace we can fight for anything and we are confident that our drivers will be able to show our speed if we manage to have a clean day tomorrow. The goal is to make it to the final and to try and repeat the podium we achieved in Greenland".
