Ferrari needs to "understand its car because of a swing of performance," claims Leclerc

F1 Grand Prix, GP United States, Circuit of The Americas

After Ferrari's struggles on the opening day of the United States Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc added that Ferrari needs to "understand its car because of [the huge] swing of performance," from one session to another.

Following a tough Friday in Texas, Ferrari managed to bounce back on Saturday. Starting from P10 on the grid in the Austin F1 Sprint, Charles Leclerc was completely baulked into Turn 1 by a spinning Lando Norris, but he still managed to negotiate that roadblock, and went on to climb up to fourth.

However, the Monegasque made a mistake while he was hunting down his former team-mate Carlos Sainz. The slight error opened the door for his team mate Lewis Hamilton, who sailed past. The Briton tried to chase down Sainz, but he eventually failed to overtake the Spaniard, and finished fourth just ahead of Leclerc.

Having struggled for one-lap pace on Friday, the Scuderia offered much more in the main qualifying. While Leclerc and Hamilton had to fight hard on Friday to secure a spot in the last qualifying segment, both drivers made Q3 with ease. But once there it looked to be going horribly wrong when Hamilton locked up on his first flying run and Leclerc spun.

However, both drivers got their act together in the dying seconds of qualifying and nailed their second laps to bag very decent starting slots with a third place for Leclerc and a fifth position for Hamilton.

Asked about how Ferrari came back after a hugely disappointing performance in Friday's sprint qualifying, Leclerc admitted Ferrari needs to "understand its car because of [the huge] swing of performance."

"Yeah, I mean, it was quite a big surprise, especially considering the weekend that has been very difficult for us since the beginning. We tried and put everything together in qualifying.

"We managed to do so, but I think there are still things we need to understand from this car because there's a bit too much of a swing of performance in the same weekend without fundamentally changing the car. So we'll look into it. But it's been an interesting Sprint race this morning.

"I think we've learned a lot. We applied that in qualifying and it seems to be working. So I hope that from now on we kind of catch back a little bit."

Signing off with a word for his expectations regarding the race, Leclerc added: "Our car is normally stronger in the race than it is in qualifying. So that’s a positive.

"I don't know if it's strong enough to go and fight with Max and McLaren, but we'll do everything. Hopefully a good start like this morning or last year and then focus to stay in front."