Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had already predicted that they would need to work a little on the qualifying pace.
After having a tough opening day, Charles Leclerc was shocked by his own performance in the qualifying race.
Leclerc finished at 13th position on Saturday’s qualifying at the Losail circuit after facing some trouble with his car. He believes that his tyre were not in the right temperature window.
In the first sector he was already 5-6 tenths, but he was shocked when he was told about the lap times of others.
He said, “honestly I don’t know what happened. Usually I know more or less why but not today. On the first run, I was a full second away from what our competitors were doing and even what Carlos was doing on the same tyres. I have zero explanations.”
A challenging day for Charles Leclerc 🙁
The Ferrari driver starts in P13 for Sunday’s race #QatarGP 🇶🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/16s41yocry
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 20, 2021
Q1 of the qualifying race was not a grat session for Leclerc because of the traffic. Moreover, the Monégasque racing driver was struggling with his car and was clueless about losing nine-tenths. He thought the car was on the limit.
Meanwhile, his teammate Carlos Sainz performed well in the qualifying race. He finished at the 7th position ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and behind McLaren’s Carlos Sainz.
Also Read: Max Verstappen explains stark difference against Lewis Hamilton in Qatar GP qualifying
Charles Leclerc had already spoken about pace deficit
After the practice session on Friday, the 24-year-old had suggested the team to work a little bit more on the qualifying pace. However, he was satisfied with the race pace of his car and said that the team tested out almost everything they wanted to before the race.
“The race pace it looks strong, so this is a good thing to take. AlphaTauri looks very strong again this weekend, so I think McLaren and AlphaTauri will be our main competitors. We are behind them for now, but I think we are quite confident that we can find the pace that we lack at the moment,” he added.
Furthermore, he explained that the track felt intense in the cars. Leclerc said, “those high-speed corners are really allowing us to feel the beasts that we are actually driving this year and these last few years and it’s been a bit of a thrill to be honest.”
“You’re also challenging yourself mentally to trust that the thing is going to grip and you are going to carry that many Gs and that much speed into the corners for so many corners like we are doing here. So it’s been a good challenge,” he further added.
Also Read: Red Bull chief dejected after seeing Sergio Perez’s elimination in Q2
