Ferrari’s season-long pace problem on soft tyres cost Charles Leclerc a chance to challenge Mercedes’ George Russell for a spot on the front row for Saturday’s Formula 1 Sprint at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
The Scuderia’s United States Grand Prix weekend started promisingly, with Carlos Sainz leading a Ferrari one-two in the solitary practice session.
On the mandatory medium tyre, Leclerc topped the opening session in Sprint Qualifying with Sainz topping the second session.
But when the soft came on for SQ3, Ferrari fell behind Red Bull and Mercedes in the performance window.
“For some reason with the Softs, Mercedes really gained something that we didn’t quite have in our car,” Leclerc explained.
“On the Mediums we were looking good, on the Softs for some reason we didn’t have the pace to challenge for P1.”
Leclerc wound up third in Sprint Qualifying, two-tenths back from Max Verstappen‘s benchmark and 0.214s behind second-placed Russell.
An error in Sector 1, proved costly for Leclerc, who explained his final run in Sprint Qualifying “was a little bit scrappy, but it’s not like I did anything weird, it’s just that the feeling wasn’t great.
“But it happens, and obviously with very limited running, it happens even more so.
“So we still have a quali tomorrow to recover, and P3 is not that bad for the Sprint Qualifying.”
Charles Leclerc has questions to be answered over Ferrari’s US GP prospects
Extracting pace over one lap on soft tyres has often plagued Ferrari in the 2024 season, but on the flip side, the Scuderia has been rewarded with a strong car in race conditions.
But with so little running on F1 Sprint weekend, Leclerc found it hard to gauge how the rest of the United States GP would pan out for him and his team.
“Max [Verstappen] is looking very quick for now, so we don’t quite have the idea of who is going to be fast in race pace,” Leclerc said.
“So for now, quite a lot of question marks, but I hope that we can win that Sprint race at least, that would be a good sign for Sunday.”
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