Carlos Sainz says he is going to do 'everything' he can to try and stay ahead of Max Verstappen at tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard sent the home fans wild in the stands at Monza on Saturday afternoon as a stunning lap saw him pip the dominant Verstappen by just 0.013s to pole position.

He'll lead the field away tomorrow afternoon, then, with team-mate Charles Leclerc acting as rear-gunner in third, and the pair will be looking to combine to try and prevent Verstappen from making it a record-breaking 10 wins in a row in F1 tomorrow afternoon, as they seek glory on home turf.

Sainz is well-placed to try and do that, then, but knows that the Red Bull car has been in on another level this year when it comes to race pace, and so keeping the Flying Dutchman at bay over the course of 53 laps of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza will be a tall order.

Even so, the Spaniard is ready for the task at hand:

"I'm going to do everything I can to stay ahead of Max," tomorrow's pole-sitter told the gathered press here in Monza.

"It's not going to be easy at all, and they're going to try and fight their way past one way or another, but something could happen so I'm just going to try tomorrow drive the race and then adapt to the circumstances of it."

It really was a phenomenal lap from Sainz, leading to him being asked towards the end of the presser as to whether he gave himself a motivational message inside his helmet before embarking on that final flying tour.

He revealed, though, that he barely has time to think about anything at the speed he had to travel around this famous old Italian circuit:

"We're so pumped with adrenaline that you don't really have time to tell yourself much - you're just seeing turn one come at 340 kph.

"And with these cars that jump around, you cannot even see turn one because of the vibrations and the speed that we're doing, so you're just trying to find your braking point as much as you can, and sometimes it's quite difficult to find it. So I don't have time to tell myself or anything like that."

Indeed, he joked that he might say 'Vamos Carlos,' and he'll certainly be pumped up tomorrow given he has the prospect of winning his second GP of his Formula One career, and also the big one for any Ferrari driver.

Verstappen in that Red Bull has been more than a match for everyone this season so far, however, and seemed relatively calm at not getting pole for tomorrow's race.

He knows that the car he has at his disposal, when it comes to race pace in particular, is, and has been, in another league this campaign - and with such a weapon available to him this fight could yet be his come tomorrow's chequered flag.

Lights out is at 3pm local time.