Charles Leclerc was bemused by the “strange feeling” he encountered with his Ferrari Formula 1 car that resigned him to qualifying fifth for the Australian Grand Prix.
Leclerc had been tipped as the favourite for pole position when he surged almost four-tenths clear of Max Verstappen at the top of the timesheets in second practice.
The Monegasque retained his advantage at the top in FP3 with a smaller margin, but he slumped to fifth on the grid, 0.520 seconds behind Verstappen’s benchmark.
Despite fronting the times in the final practice hour, Leclerc revealed that his struggles with the SF-24 started on Saturday morning and then continued into qualifying.
“To be honest, I think it started from much earlier in the weekend, FP3 already I felt like it was going away a little bit from me,” Leclerc reflected.
“But I was confident it would come back, the feeling in qualifying, as is normally the case whenever we have a strange feeling in FP3. Then you put the new tyres on in quali, low fuel and everything comes alive again. Today wasn’t the case.”
Leclerc has divulged that he attempted to make some “aggressive” tweaks to the front wing angle to improve his issues but to no avail as he aborted his last attempt.
“I struggled quite a lot with the front tyres until the last run in Q3, when I went very aggressive with the front wing to try something, and I went the other way,” he added.
“But all in all, it hasn’t been a clean day for me. I haven’t been driving as well as yesterday. But tomorrow, the race is long and I’ll try to maximize everything.”
Leclerc has admitted he remained cautious about Ferrari’s chances of pole following practice, which extended when Red Bull ramped up its engine modes in FP3.
“Yesterday I had the doubt [that pole was possible[, FP3 I had big doubt when I saw that Red Bull started to put the engine on full power and from Turn 7 to Turn 9 I think we were losing already three-tenths, so that was huge,” he explained. “Then from that moment onwards, I thought that pole position might be difficult.
“But then in Q1, we were very strong, so I thought OK, maybe. At the end, it wasn’t.”
Leclerc’s team-mate Carlos Sainz, who was ruled out of the Saudi Arabian weekend with appendicitis, secured a front-row start in the sister Ferrari on his return.
But while Ferrari showcased encouraging long-run pace in practice, Leclerc believes it will be a tall order for either him or Sainz to stop Verstappen from winning.
“I think again realistically, it’s going to be difficult to target the win because Max is going to be too strong,” Leclerc admitted.
“Checo [Sergio Perez, starting third] might be a target, but they seem strong once again because they have more margin than we thought they had yesterday.
“But all in all, my target is to try and come back and be on the podium, and if beating Checo, we’ll try.”
With Albert Park being notorious for overtaking chances being limited, Leclerc is hoping that Pirelli’s decision to bring its Softest compounds could create opportunities.
Asked if he was optimistic the switch towards a potential two-stop strategy could open things up, Leclerc replied: “I hope so. I hope so.
“But again, we’ll focus on ourselves, and if we can put them [Red Bull] under a bit more pressure, which hasn’t been the case until now, then I’m happy to do so.”
