It is a clean day for Scuderia Ferrari F1 driver Charles Leclerc as he bags another P1 start after inheriting pole position from Max Verstappen who has a 10-place grid penalty.
Leclerc grabbed the 2nd slot in Q3 with a 1:53:754, 0.595s behind the Dutchman who set the fastest lap of qualifying on Saturday afternoon. He had been a shade slower than teammate Carlos Sainz in Q1 and Q2, but he ultimately defeated him by 0.7s in Q3.
The 6-time race winner said the rain increasing at the end of Q3 made things more difficult as he managed to pip Sergio Pérez by 0.011s. However, he admits that getting pole on pure pace alone was out of reach for them.
“It was a good lap. As Max said, the rain picked up a little bit at the end of Q3, which maybe there was a bit more to find on the first part of Q3, but obviously anyway, P1 was out of reach for us today.”
The Monegasque was clearly surprised that his lap got him P2 in qualifying. As he admits, it was a clean lap, but not a spectacular one.
“No, I’m very surprised. And actually, even when I finished the lap, I didn’t feel like it was worth a second place.
“I mean, it was a good lap, a clean lap, and that’s what you need in those conditions. And I believe that especially when you get to Q3 in the last lap, everybody knows that this is the lap, and that pushes people to maybe do more mistakes.
“On my side, it was a clean lap, but not an incredible lap. So yeah, I’m very happy to be P2 but I definitely did not expect that.”
Leclerc believes had it not been for the mixed conditions during qualifying, the target for the team would’ve been P5 at best.
“I think as a team today P5 will have been a bit of a good result and today we are P2 and tomorrow we will be starting on pole.
“It’s a lot better than what we expected coming into the weekend, and especially after yesterday, that was a very difficult day for the team once again. So yeah, the tricky conditions helped us today.”
Asked if he was coming in confident for tomorrow’s grand prix, the 26-year-old said that it’s going to be tricky for Ferrari as they have been struggling in the dry in the past few races. He added that Perez, starting 2nd on the grid, will be the main target to keep behind. McLaren are looking unbelievably quick.
“It’s going to be a tricky race for us. It will be dry conditions. And on dry conditions recently, we’ve been struggling a little bit more.
“However, the McLaren is a bit further away than what we wanted. There’s Checo right behind. That will be the main target, and then we’ll see how it goes after the first stint.
“But it’s a good starting position. It’s also a track where you can overtake quite easily, so we’ll need the pace, and that we’ll only have the answer tomorrow.”
When asked how they were able to improve the balance and the tyre temperature into qualifying, the 25-time pole sitter responded that they were able to tweak the out-lap preparation and modify where and how much to push on it. He also added that the balance of his car didn’t need to be changed that much.
“We didn’t change the balance that much actually from Q1 to Q3. I think where we improved quite a bit was to put the tyres in the right window.
“That was super important and in those conditions that’s always where you struggle. So this we did some modifications especially on the out-lap and how much you push and where you push.
“And then I felt more at ease, and that helped me for Q3. So, yeah, it was all about fine-tuning the out-lap and putting the tyres in the right window.”
Faced with some porpoising, Leclerc was pressed about updates on the car bouncing, he then responded that he doesn’t expect it to be an issue during the race.
However, he adds that the mixed conditions helped them mitigate the issue during qualifying.
“Today, it was fine. But obviously, in wet conditions, it’s always a little bit less of an issue. Yesterday, we struggled a bit more with it.
“But I don’t expect this to be an issue tomorrow during the race. So this is a positive.
“So yeah. But if it was a dry quali, I would have expected it to be a bit more of a struggle for us.”
