Ferrari beat McLaren in Brazil on Friday, but Carlos Sainz was not pleased to see Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri out-qualify him for the second race running.

Despite the fact that both Ferrari cars finished ahead of McLaren in qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz believes the Scuderia must continue to improve after losing to AlphaTauri yet again.

Last time out in Mexico, Ferrari overcame McLaren for third place in the Constructors’ standings, and they outperformed their rivals in qualifying on Friday.

Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished eighth and ninth, respectively, behind Sainz and Charles Leclerc.

Although Ferrari is in a strong position to expand their lead over McLaren, Sainz concedes that the team still has work to do after placing second to AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly in qualifying for the second time.

“It’s no surprise,” said Sainz after qualifying, having trailed Gasly – who will line up in P5 – by half a tenth of a second.

“They [AlphaTauri] have a very strong car, they have been very quick all season, it’s just now they look to be finding the consistency they were maybe lacking at the beginning – and that car is seriously quick.

“We will try to beat it and try to keep improving because as Ferrari, we don’t want to be beaten by AlphaTauri, even if we beat both McLarens.”

“AlphaTauri were too quick”

Meanwhile, Leclerc was dissatisfied with the results of his third qualifying session. Although Ferrari finished ahead of both McLaren vehicles, he believes AlphaTauri’s speed was too much to overcome.

“In Q3 it was just not great,” said the Monegasque. “We did the first runs on used tyres, which wasn’t great for my rhythm, and then I didn’t do a good enough job on the second run in Q3.

“AlphaTauri was just probably too quick, but it’s like this.

“[Beating McLaren] is the positive of today, but I wish there was a better result.”