Charles Leclerc has admitted Ferrari must do “something special” to keep the Formula 1 title alive versus McLaren as he qualified in fifth place at the Qatar Grand Prix.
McLaren securing a vital 1-2 in the earlier Sprint race as Leclerc wound up fifth behind team-mate Carlos Sainz has seen Ferrari‘s gap to the leaders grow to 30 points.
Ferrari had threatened to cause an upset at the Lusail International Circuit when Leclerc topped FP1, but that speed hasn’t carried into the sessions that have counted.
That proved to be the case again as the Italian marque’s woes over one lap saw Leclerc take fifth on the grid behind the McLaren duo, who locked out the second row.
“Honestly, today was the best we could do,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week. “I was really happy with both of my laps.
“There was very little between them, I think two, three hundredths, but there wasn’t anything more in the car today.”
Verstappen credited “aggressive” set-up changes elevating him from an underwhelming run to eighth place in the Sprint race to clinching an unexpected pole position.
Leclerc divulged Ferrari also adopted minor tweaks to the car over the interval, but conceded his three-tenth gap to Verstappen reflected the SF-24’s outright potential.
“On our side, we fine-tuned a lot of things, let’s say,” he detailed. “So, small details everywhere, but we did change the car.
“And it definitely felt a lot better. However, the performance of the car was just what it was.”
Mercedes, Red Bull pace a surprise to Ferrari
Leclerc proclaimed that Red Bull’s unanticipated emergence with Verstappen and Mercedes’ pace to log a front-row with George Russell came as a surprise to Ferrari.
Asked whether the lingering weaknesses Ferrari has in high-speed versus McLaren are still there despite its resurgence, Leclerc responded: “Yes, they are.
“I honestly think that we are much closer than what we thought compared to McLaren.
“However, compared to Mercedes and Red Bull, it’s another story. It was surprising for us to see them so fast. We did not expect them to be so strong.
“But McLaren, we expected them to be better compared to us. All in all, we are fighting McLaren. We have a good race pace and more everything is possible.”
But although Mercedes and Red Bull’s presence has ensured that McLaren won’t line up at the sharp end, Leclerc has stated that isn’t a guaranteed positive for Ferrari.
Put to him that having more teams in the fight could be advantageous to Ferrari, the Monegasque pondered: “It depends [on] the way you see it.
“Because if tomorrow we overtake them at the start, then I wish the two in front were not there.
“If we stay behind at the start, then I’m happy if they can keep the first and second place.”
Ferrari gunning to beat McLaren
Leclerc has accepted that Ferrari has to exceed the side’s own pre-race estimations tomorrow in order to maintain a realistic title hope going into the Abu Dhabi finale.
“Realistically, yes, but we still had hope that we could turn the situation around,” he answered when told it was expected to be a damage limitation weekend.
“Because at the end, if we want to win the Constructors, we’ve got to finish in front this weekend. And we cannot afford to just take the points available.
“We need to overperform in order to target the Constructors. Tomorrow, we’ve got to do something special in order to gain some points on them.”
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