“Max Verstappen is quite far ahead”: 24-year old Charles Leclerc admits Ferrari didn’t take Qualifying seriously in spite of obvious gap to Red Bull star

Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen are both taking grid penalties ahead of the Belgian GP and will start the race from  P16 and P15 respectively. 

Verstappen is currently 80 points ahead of Charles Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship Standings. He’s the clear favorite to win his second Title in a row, but Leclerc has refused to give up.

A Ferrari driver hasn’t won the Title since 2007 and this was by far their best chance to do so. However, reliability issues and their own goof-ups have seen them lose out on some huge points. Now that F1 is back after a three-week summer break, the Scuderia are focused on closing the gap to Red Bull as much as possible.

Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz looked fairly fast on Friday, but Saturday turned out to be different. Leclerc could only manage a P4 finish in Q3, whereas Sainz finished P2. What will worry the Italian outfit more, however, is their gap to Verstappen up front.

Also read: “Did not expect to be 2 seconds off Max Verstappen”: 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton laments Mercedes’ slow place despite making promising developments

Ferrari gave up on Qualifying because of penalty, says Charles Leclerc

At the start of the weekend, it was revealed that both Verstappen and Leclerc would be taking engine penalties. This meant that they would be starting further back in spite of how they performed on Saturday.

While Verstappen went out with all guns blazing, Ferrari had already given up on securing pole for Leclerc. The 24-year-old Monegasque will start the race from P16, a position behind Verstappen which may turn out to be crucial going into the first corner.

“We didn‘t prepare as we normally do for a quali session,” Leclerc said to F1TV. “Because we knew we had a penalty, so we prepared mostly the race. But having said that, Max‘s lap time is pretty much..yeah. He is quite a bit far ahead.”

“The car seems to be strong since the beginning of the weekend for them. Tomorrow is going to be difficult. We seem to be a bit more competitive in the race but yeah it‘s going to be a difficult one.”

Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz will start Sunday’s race from pole position, ahead of Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez who starts from second.

Also read: Red Bull boss taunts his $50 Million a year star Max Verstappen during the Belgian Grand Prix’s FP3