Charles Leclerc (MON) Ferrari in qualifying parc ferme. 01.04.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 3, Australian Grand Prix, Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia, Qualifying Day.
Charles Leclerc has admitted he didn’t do a good enough job in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix despite complaining about communication troubles disrupting his final run.
Last year’s pole sitter ended up a lowly seventh, a tenth of a second and two places behind his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz.
Although Leclerc received a helpful tow from Sainz through the middle sector, the Monegasque driver rued that he was held up during the opening exchanges of the lap.
Nevertheless, Leclerc underlined that his worst qualifying performance of 2023 was more down to him not extracting the most from the car through qualifying.
“Q1 and Q2 clearly I wasn’t on it, I wasn’t driving well, I wasn’t putting everything together so that was my fault,” he acknowledged.
“Q3 I managed to feel a bit better in the car, quite confident I could put everything together.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened in the second run of Q3, whether it was a miscommunication with Carlos, but I found myself behind him for the whole of the first sector which wasn’t great.
“We’ll speak at the debrief about that to try and improve those situations.”
Ferrari had sent Leclerc out for his final run early in Q3 with the anticipation that a rain shower would arrive in the closing stages.
But with Leclerc out of sync compared to the rest of the pole contenders, he encountered traffic in the form of the sister Ferrari at the beginning of his final tour.
Leclerc, however, still holds himself accountable, believing he could have strung together a more competitive effort if he had arrived at Q3 with a smoother rhythm.
“To be honest I feel like we are quite competitive, but I just didn’t put everything together,” he reiterated.
“So also in the first run in Q3, it’s a bit my fault also as when you arrive into Q3 you need to put everything together in whatever laps you do.
“So yeah we could have optimised it by having better communication, but I also didn’t do a great job today.
Charles Leclerc (MON) Ferrari SF-23. 01.04.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 3, Australian Grand Prix, Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia, Qualifying Day.
Ferrari had entered qualifying hopeful of being in the battle for pole position after Leclerc stated the team had enjoyed its best Friday of the year yesterday.
While Leclerc insisted the feeling inside the car was better than in Saudi Arabia, the Italian stable endured its worst qualifying result of the season at the Albert Park track.
But the five-time race winner is confident that the changes Ferrari has made to counter its race day woes in 2023 could enable it to spring a turnaround tomorrow.
“From Jeddah to here honestly the feeling is better,” he said. “Again today I’m not particularly happy with the way I drove.
“I wouldn’t panic in a way of today, I think two, three-tenths. I just needed to drive better today, and I think the car wasn’t that bad, the feeling was actually quite good.
“So let’s see tomorrow whether we improved it. I think part of the changes we’ve done this weekend was to make the race pace better, it might have hurt a little bit the predictability in the race, but hopefully we will see some positive signs.
With Friday practice being largely disrupted by incidents and then wet weather in the second session, the teams were unable to conduct race simulation runs ahead of the weekend.
Leclerc has conceded it has left Ferrari in the dark on how it could fare in the race.
“No, not at all, so I think it’s a big question mark tomorrow,” Leclerc pondered. “But the feeling on the few laps I’ve done was quite positive.”
Keyword: Leclerc admits he ‘needed to drive’ better in qualifying