"Mixed feeling," claims Leclerc after suffering a big margin from pole position
Despite qualifying fourth on the grid for tomorrow's Spa F1 Sprint, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was left to rue the difference between his benchmark and the pole position time set by McLaren rival Oscar Piastri.
Ferrari's seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult opening day at the Belgian Grand Prix. The British driver looked to struggle for a consistent balance behind the wheel of his SF-25 in the sole one-hour practice session, but he still managed to grab seventh place.
However, he endured more difficult fortunes in the sprint qualifying session. The seven-time champion looked fairly competitive on his first flying lap, but he made a mistake at Stavelot which resulted in a time loss of around seven tenths.
His mistake meant that he needed a second flying lap which looked enough to make it out in Q1, but when he braked for the Bus Stop chicane, he lost the rear end of his Ferrari.
The replays showed that Hamilton's rear tyres instantly locked under braking, which ultimately resulted in the seven-time world champion being knocked out in 18th.
On the other side of the garage, Charles Leclerc was able to make it into the last qualifying segment. The Monegasque looked fairly competitive both on the medium and the soft compound, but he was unable to fight for the pole position.
In the end, the 27-year-old positioned his Ferrari on the second row of the grid, although the 0.768s margin to pole left him with conflicting emotions.
“The feeling was pretty good which, to me, it’s a mixed feeling. On one side, I’m happy that the car feels better and, on the other, even if the car feels pretty good, we are still seven tenths off, which is a huge amount of time.
Continuing his explanation, Leclerc stated: “Yes, it’s a long track, but it’s still a big amount of time. So there is a lot of work to be done.
"We just need to add grip to this car at the end of the day. I don’t think we do anything particularly wrong, but we just need more grip that we don’t seem to have for now.”
