Charles Leclerc disagreed with a key tactical call by Ferrari during qualifying, which he said compromised his chances of taking pole position.
He will start today’s race from second on the grid having qualified 0.228 seconds slower than pole-winner Max Verstappen. However Leclerc lapped quicker than Verstappen’s best time earlier in the session and believes he could have beaten him to pole position had he not been put off his stride by having to run used tyres at the beginning of Q3.
That was necessary because he’d run a set of tyres for one lap at the end of Q1. Ferrari sent him out of at the end of the session fearing he could be eliminated if enough drivers improved their times on their final runs.
However it proved unnecessary and Leclerc was called back in after a single lap. He shook his head as he pulled up in the Ferrari pit box and said afterwards he was “not really happy about it.”
“It’s something we’ll discuss with the team,” said Leclerc. “I thought there was quite a lot of margin, but obviously being the first qualifying of the year, the team didn’t want to risk it. So we had to run again with another new soft, which again, it puts us a little bit on the back foot for the rest of qualifying.”
Having to run the lightly-worn set at the start of Q3 made it harder to judge the change in grip levels before his final run, said Leclerc.
“In Q3, I didn’t really find the grip straight away out of the box, which was a bit strange, so we’ll look at that. Having a scrubbed set also at the beginning of Q3 I think put us a little bit on the back foot, because the track is evolving and it’s a bit more difficult to read how much front flap you need to put for that last run. And there I think we lost a little bit the rhythm.”
Leclerc’s qualifying radio messages
When Leclerc set a lap of 1’30.243 in Q1 it left Ferrari in a quandary. Carlos Sainz Jnr had gone quickest in their other car with a 1’29.909, 0.334s faster than Leclerc. With the cut-off time for a place in Q2 standing at 1’31.025, they were confident Sainz would be safe from other drivers improving their times, but weren’t sure about Leclerc.
Nor were other teams whose drivers had set quicker times than Leclerc. Both Red Bull drivers, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Lando Norris also emerged for another run.
When Leclerc asked if he had gone quick enough to ensure his place in Q2, race engineer Xavier…
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