Charles Leclerc admits Ferrari were “quite surprised” by Mercedes’ pace across the Qatar Grand Prix.
Ferrari and Mercedes are currently embroiled in a battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship, with the Scuderia having made sizeable inroads since the break.
The Italian marque had outscored its rivals at the previous three rounds before Qatar to close the deficit to 20 points but was unable to match Mercedes at the Lusail circuit.
Despite its two drivers coming to blows on the first lap – taking Lewis Hamilton out of the race entirely– George Russell was able to recover from the back and an early pit stop to salvage fourth, ahead of Leclerc.
Leclerc, who was Ferrari’s sole running car after Carlos Sainz failed to take the start with a fuel-system issue, believes he extracted the maximum result, conceding that McLaren and Mercedes were out of reach.
“I mean obviously first of all we didn’t start the day in the best way possible with Carlos’ issue which was a shame, and also this in a way made us take a bit more margin on my side driving-wise just to be on the safe side, on the other hand I don’t think there was more we could have extracted for today’s race,” he reflected.
“[I was] Not surprised with McLaren’s pace – even though they were super quick we expected them on a track like that to be strong. On the other hand, quite surprised with Mercedes’ pace, yeah, for them to finish in front of us with a crash on Lap 1 is a surprise.”
Ahead of Sunday’s race, the FIA imposed a maximum stint length of 18 laps for each competitor to combat the tyre safety concerns Pirelli spotted on Friday night.
But Leclerc doesn’t believe Ferrari’s struggles could be attributed to the mandated tyre strategy, accepting it simply lacked the pace after ending up 33s adrift of the McLarens.
Asked if the reduced stints restricted Ferrari in any way, Leclerc said: For sure, I don’t remember exactly what kind of tyres George had and if he had a bit more flexibility, but on our side, we had four laps flexibility, so it’s not enough to create a tyre delta and then it’s just a train to the end of the race.
“All in all we just lacked pace, if you look at McLaren we finished very far behind.”
He added: “I think honestly today it’s not really about the tyre overheating it’s more just the overall grip, in terms of pace we weren’t there, even when pushing we were far off the McLarens.”
Some swift pit-stop work from Ferrari had enabled Leclerc to get ahead of Fernando Alonso, but the Aston Martin driver immediately regained the place he had lost.
However, a wide moment at Turn 2 saw Alonso trail through the gravel, almost hitting the Ferrari as he sought to return back onto the race track. The Spaniard avoided a penalty, finishing one place behind Leclerc.
“Er… it was on the limit yes, but on the other hand honestly he was so far off I don’t think he saw me at any point then coming back, yeah, not the best way to rejoin the track but at the same time I don’t think he saw I was there,” Leclerc concluded.
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