For the second week in a row, Charles Leclerc will start from the front row in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix tomorrow, joining Max
Verstappen, but he was dissatisfied with the separation between Ferrari and the Red Bull.
With a better lap in the final moments of qualifying, Leclerc just edged off Sergio Perez for second place, but he was still more than
three tenths slower than Verstappen in the third heat.
“I’m not fully satisfied with qualifying today and we will work on understanding the feeling I had during the sessions to be able to get
all the potential out of the car in the future,” he stated.
Leclerc gave an explanation for his late surge in speed, stating that the team’s attempt at tire warming at the beginning of the final
round with an unorthodox double warm-up method had not really worked.
Leclerc remarked, “We tried something different doing a preparation lap on the first lap in Q3, but that didn’t work out well for us.” “I
then integrated everything on the second lap.
“That was what was in the car today, so I’m really happy with the lap,” he maintained. “We definitely made progress in comparison to
the previous year.”
He went on, “I feel more at ease in the car.” It’s unfortunate, though, that we are not as close to qualifying as we had planned.
However, the race is tomorrow, and I
Leclerc gave a fair assessment of Ferrari’s chances of winning the race on Saturday when asked if he thought the team could contend
with Verstappen and Perez.
““I think the car is in a better spot in race runs, so we just have to focus on ourselves,” said the driver. “We can’t change the car now for
tomorrow, so we’ll try and optimise everything else for the race and then let’s see what’s possible.”
After feeling poorly all week and skipping media duties on Wednesday, Carlos Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis, meaning Leclerc
will be without his regular teammate on the grid tomorrow.
Leclerc congratulated backup driver Oliver Bearman for stepping in and stated, “I wish Carlos all the best for a speedy recovery.”
“Ollie is extremely talented and he showed it today on his first F1 qualifying,” he stated. He’s worked on simulations a lot, so it’s
encouraging to see that the work he did in preparation at the factory paid off.
“He was incredibly impressive today and well-prepared. I believe that tomorrow we can win a lot of points between the two of us.”
Sainz had surgery on Friday morning, and according to reports from a nearby hospital, he is healing nicely. Frederic Vasseur, the
principal of the Ferrari team, expressed his hope that he will return soon to Sky Sports F1. “This is a difficult time.
Vasseur said, “[We] discovered on Thursday morning that he is not feeling well. “We were first considering a food-related concern.
Based on qualifying pace and long distance runs in practice, Vasseur agreed with Leclerc’s assessment that Max Verstappen was “a bit
too far away for us” in terms of the team’s chances in the race on Saturday.
“Charles’ last attempt was very good and so he was able to secure P2 once again on the front row, even if Max did a fantastic job at the
beginning of Q3,” he stated.
“Now we have to focus on the race: we had good pace yesterday, so we need to have a good strategy and a clean race,” he said. Oliver
had a challenging day, so I’m also happy with him.
He was not overly anxious despite having a lot on his plate, and it
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