Charles Leclerc is hopeful that his Qatar Grand Prix prospects will be benefitted by Ferrari’s tyre strategy call during Saturday’s Formula 1 Sprint Race.
The Monegasque driver was one of a handful of drivers to take to the track on the Soft compound during the shortened 19-lap encounter.
Starting in P6, Leclerc utilised his tyre advantage to mount a challenge for the top three positions on the opening lap. He had to settle into fourth after staunch defence from team-mate Carlos Sainz.
While the tyre advantage allowed Leclerc to gain early positions from Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, the Ferrari driver would soon fall down the order on tyres which had already seen six laps of running prior to the Sprint.
“We didn’t have any choice, obviously that’s the only tyres I have left because we used two new tyres in Q3, one new in SQ3, so I didn’t have any new soft left,” Leclerc reflected after the race.
“That made it a bit more difficult, because they were already damaged. But we has quite good [tyre] management.
“We didn’t use the Mediums like the others did and it seems like a strong tyre, so that’s good for us.”
As his tyres faded, Leclerc also fell into the clutches of Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps. The Mercedes driver would pass both Ferrari as he recovered to fifth place from P12 on the grid.
“With the tyres we had we couldn’t do much more,” the 25-year-old conceded.
After crossing the line seventh, Leclerc was dropped to 12th by a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits.
“We were in the same position as Mercedes. Let’s look forward to tomorrow, I think tomorrow we have one set more Medium, because people used it today and it looks like a good tyre so our strategy might pay off tomorrow.
“We will try and maximise everything. I don’t want to give too much away but I’m happy with the choice we made.”
The Medium tyre looked to come into its own during the Sprint, with Leclerc noting one particular benefit of the compound in the final corner of the Qatari circuit.
“It’s all about how good you are in the last corner, then it makes it very easy or difficult to overtake,” he said.
“With the Medium it seems they had a good front in the last corner which helped a lot to overtake, so It’s going to be a good race.”
