“This is where we are” – Leclerc believes F1 qualifying showed true Ferrari pace

Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari’s qualifying display is a true indication of its current Formula 1 performance levels, with Lewis Hamilton’s sprint race victory at the Chinese Grand Prix an outlier.

Hamilton sprung a surprise on Friday when he took pole position for the sprint, which he then converted into victory for his first win for Ferrari, having struggled during the opening race in Australia last week.

Despite enjoying a bigger winning margin than all but one of the 2024 sprint races, neither Hamilton nor Leclerc were able to replicate such a performance in qualifying for the grand prix.

Instead, Hamilton will start fifth with Leclerc alongside – the pair having started seventh and eighth in Melbourne with the order reversed.

However, after underperforming in Australia and Hamilton’s somewhat shock Shanghai sprint success, Leclerc feels Ferrari has now levelled out with its qualifying showing.

“This afternoon I think the potential was just not there,” he said.

“The overall grip was just not there, and I think in Australia I felt like we didn’t do a great job in qualifying, and we were further away than what we thought but, if we had put everything together, I think we were expecting to be three tenths off.

“I think these three tenths that we see today are generally where we are. Apart from Lewis did a great, great job yesterday, but I feel like today I did a good job. I’m sure Lewis did a good job as well and that’s the potential of the car.

“Is there a little bit more in the car? Maybe. Three tenths, I don’t think so. But we need to look forward to tomorrow.”

Leclerc started the sprint in fourth but finished a place further back having been overtaken by George Russell and then struggling to find a way past the Mercedes as his tyres suffered.

“This morning we had good pace in the car, especially towards the end of the stint but being in dirty air is always trickier, so I had wished for a better quali,” Leclerc added.

“The tyre management looked good, but we need to be careful because, on my side, I was struggling a lot being in dirty air. Lewis had really good pace in free air. We just need to try and find free air from where we start.

“This is going to be a bit tricky because, starting P5 and P6, we’ve got quite a few cars in front, so to find free air is never easy. But we’ll try our best and hopefully our race pace is better than the guys around.”

Hamilton had entered qualifying hopeful of repeating his success from Friday but felt changes to the set-up left his Ferrari more difficult to drive.

“We started really optimistic naturally, but then we made just a couple of small changes, tweaks to the car, and it really put the car on a knife edge,” he said.

“I think the wind picked up a little bit as well, so the car was just trickier today. It was harder to put laps together.

“You want a car that’s balanced. At the moment, from one corner to the next, the car has a different balance.

“You just want a car that you can rely on. When you attack the corners, you know it’s going to stay with you instead of lock-up and go on or snap into oversteer and, when it’s unpredictable, then you’ve got no hope.”