F1 | Leclerc: “Pole impossible. We underestimated Red Bull”

If Carlos Sainz's face is suffering from the recent operation, but happy with the result obtained in Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, the same thing cannot be said for Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque, who started as Ferrari's spearhead this weekend, saw all his hopes of pole melt like snow in the sun, finishing the Melbourne qualifying session in fifth place after an escalation that took him from being in great symbiosis with his SF-24 yesterday having to fight with it in an unexpected way.

Leclerc made a couple of mistakes in his last attempt, the decisive one in Q3, which relegated him to fifth place, but at the end of official practice he admitted that taking pole against this Red Bull would have been practically impossible. The RB20s used a mapping today that was evidently faster than the one selected yesterday (Helmut Marko had said so…), so Ferrari found itself partially displaced already in Free Practice 3 this morning.

“The pole, in my opinion, we underestimated the power that Red Bull used in qualifying,” Leclerc candidly admitted at the end of qualifying. “Already in Free Practice 3 we had seen that between Turn 7 and Turn 9 they had much more speed than we thought at the beginning. So taking pole today would have been very difficult.”

The problem is the feeling that was missing with the front of the SF-24 between yesterday and today. This led Charles to make a desperate change for Q3, increasing the incidence of the front wing flap to have more load and regain confidence, but this change backfired. A merciless boomerang.

“Objectively, however, I didn't maximize the potential of the car and that's clear. I didn't do a good job in Free Practice 3 and I lost the right set-up on the car a bit, but I still managed to do a good lap and I thought I could recovering the feeling with the car in qualifying, but it was the opposite, I lost it even more. Now the best thing we can do tomorrow is to concentrate on the race, hoping that the race pace can bring us back to our place.”

“Yesterday I had a lot of confidence in the car, especially on the front. Then this morning I started to lose it a lot and in the last run of qualifying I risked using the front wing flap to get it back, but we probably went the opposite way compared to what I wanted. But I wanted to try.”

“In retrospect I would have been better off taking third place and staying further ahead, but I wanted to try something and I was too aggressive.”

Ferrari proved to have a very interesting race pace yesterday and, at the same time, Red Bull saw graining quickly appear on its tires in the race simulation. This leaves the race still open, at least on paper, but Leclerc will have to recover quickly so as not to miss the right move.

Furthermore, after today's disappointment, he doesn't want to make the same mistake again, that is, underestimating Red Bull. That's why he reminded everyone how the RB20s have always shown that they have a superior race pace to that of Ferrari. A sort of release of responsibility, a shift of pressure on the opponents, who seem to get along well in all the conditions that arise before them.

“There are 4 DRS zones in the race, so I think everything is still possible. Then we'll see tomorrow. But the race pace is good. The podium is our goal. Victory, even if Carlos starts second, I think is difficult because the Red Bull still has a slightly better pace than ours. We will still try to put them under pressure.”