Charles Leclerc proved to be in more difficulty than Carlos Sainz at the end of the Hungarian Saturday: his time of 1’15”905 only earned him the third row. The Prancing Horse driver was not entirely satisfied with his performance in qualifying, but he believes that the Maranello team could not have done much more than fourth or fifth place.
So what cost him fifth place? The last corner, where he admitted to losing a few cents.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Looking ahead to the race, there are two possibilities: if temperatures remain cold enough, the two Reds do not expect an ending different from today’s, but if they rise – as during FP1 – the epilogue could be different.
“With warm weather, things could change. And obviously tyre management will be an important aspect. So we need to work on that and prepare.”
Leclerc says there is still a lot of work to be done at Ferrari, because “it is clear that we lack a bit of pace compared to McLaren and Red Bull. And we are quite similar to Mercedes”.
Although he prefers to keep his feet on the ground, the Monegasque driver is convinced that the Reds are doing the right thing, committing to maximising results rather than experimenting.
“Even this weekend I knew we needed something more to get back to the level of McLaren and Red Bull. But I think the best thing we could do was not to continue experimenting. It was very important for us to maximise this weekend and honestly I think we achieved that. The biggest problem now is that we don’t have the performance to do much better. That’s what we will focus on for future development.”
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