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After looking good in Friday’s practice sessions, Leclerc was less happy in Saturday’s FP3 session and during qualifying he struggled with his front tires.
After finishing fourth in Q1 and second in Q2, he attempted a front wing change for his final run in Q3 in a bid to find more performance.
However, it didn’t pay off and after dropping out of the race he had to settle for fifth place.
“To be honest, I think it starts a lot earlier in the weekend,” he said when asked by Autosport about his Q3 struggles.
“Already in FP3, I had the impression that it was taking me away a little, but I was convinced that it would come back in qualifying, as is normally the case.
“Every time we feel a strange feeling in FP3, then you put the new tires on in qualifying, with little fuel, and everything comes back to life.
“Today that was not the case. I had a lot of trouble with the front tires, until the last run in Q3 where I was very aggressive with the front wing to try something, and I took the opposite route.
Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, greets fans after qualifying
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
“But overall it wasn’t a clean day for me, I didn’t drive as well as yesterday. But tomorrow the race is long and I will try to maximize everything.”
Leclerc cited his own tire preparation as one of the reasons for his difficulties.
“The feeling wasn’t good,” he said. “From FP3 onwards, it was much more difficult to have a clean lap. Yesterday, every lap I did was clean, everything was fine.
“And today there is one axle or another that is going to disappear, which is mainly due to the preparation of the tires.
“And I don’t think I did a great job of that today.” So it’s a snowball effect for the rest of the round. That’s why I think I made a mistake.”
Leclerc admitted that FP3 also opened his eyes to Red Bull’s performance.
“I saw that Red Bull was starting to put the engine to full power,” he said. “And from turn 7 to turn 9, I think we were already losing three tenths this morning. So it was huge.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
“And then from that moment I felt that pole position would have been difficult. But then in the first quarter we were really strong, so I was like, “Okay, maybe.” In the end, this was not the case.
“I think being realistic, it’s going to be difficult to aim for victory because Max [Verstappen] It’s going to be too strong. Checo [Perez] could be a target.
“But they look strong again because they have even more margin than we initially thought they had yesterday.
“But overall my goal is obviously to try to come back and get on the podium. And if it’s to beat Checo, then we’ll try to do it.”
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