Charles Leclerc admitted that not participating in the opening practice session in Hungary had a bigger impact than he expected, though refused to blame it for his sub-par qualifying performance.
Leclerc sat out the opening session in order for reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi to rack up further experience in Sauber’s C37, before returning for the second session.
Leclerc dropped out of a wet/dry Q1, the first time he failed to escape the opening knockout segment since China, during which spell he has made Q3 on three occasions.
On missing FP1, he said: “It hurt a little bit, definitely more than expected.
“Last year I was in Formula 2 where we only had one session before qualifying and this year when I started to do FP1, FP2, FP3 it’s really a lot before qualifying.
“But actually you always find something more session after session, so it’s a bit of a disadvantage.
“But it was definitely not the cause of the performance, or the poor performance [in qualifying].”
Leclerc explained that his desire to ensure he had a lap on the leaderboard was to blame for his premature exit.
“We did a pretty good job in the last races, especially qualifying, and I have just not done the job properly in the car,” he said.
“I took a bit of margin obviously in these conditions and I just wanted to put a lap on the board.
“Then when I tried to push the tyres were already gone, so it’s like this and I will learn from it.”
Leclerc will start the race from 17th on the grid.
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