Charles Leclerc has admitted it will be his responsibility if the gamble to compromise his qualifying at Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix doesn’t pay dividends in the race.
The Monegasque driver will line up for the race in seventh position, having failed to qualify ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, setting only one lap in Q3, which was over half a second off the pole position time of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Leclerc was as high as fourth, but as others improved in their final runs, the Ferrari man was condemned to start the race from an ultimately tricky spot on the fourth row.
After qualfying, Leclerc revealed that the decision to complete a solitary run was his idea, in a bid to complete a good race strategy, having saved two sets of Medium tyres.
“I think that with two sets in Q3 it’s always easier,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week. “I probably would have found time. How much, I don’t know.
“Also I think there was a little bit more clouds.
“But I take full responsibility of the way the qualifying has gone. It was my choice, and in Q3 it was my choice to go in the middle when the team was pushing me to go to the end.
“I still wanted to have a plan B in case that one lap wasn’t going to plan a mistake or whatsoever, the chance to have a second lap. So that’s on me.
“And I also did all these choices in order to have better tyres for tomorrow’s race.
“If tomorrow we have a very bad race then I’ll have to take the responsibility of a bad weekend. If it goes well then I’m happy to take the credit of pushing the team one way, but only time will tell.
“Obviously P7 is a little bit below our expectations. Even with the choices I’ve made for qualifying I expect it to be a bit further up. But it’s the way it is.
“Now the choices are made and I hope that tomorrow it will pay off.”
Leclerc: Tyre prep ‘in right direction’
The Catalan weather has produced some sizzling temperatures over both the three free practice sessions and qualifying.
When asked how preparations are going in terms of tyrewear, Leclerc responded positively.
“I think we are doing steps in the right direction,” he said. “I haven’t checked the whole lap to see if we are losing everything in the first sector or not. I’ll have a look at that but it felt a bit better.
Asked how the SF-25 felt in tandem with the flexi-wing technical directive [TD] implementation, Leclerc suggested a pleasant surprise in free practice, but was wary of a McLaren red herring.
“I mean I was a bit more optimistic after FP1 and FP2. I thought that the car was behaving pretty well, but unfortunately in qualifying it went back to normal,” he said.
“That’s a little bit what I was thinking of last night that we’ll only see when everybody goes flat out in quali and McLaren is still a step ahead.”
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