"I was just missing that final bit," admits Leclerc
Ferrari left Friday's Sprint Qualifying at the British Grand Prix with plenty of reasons for optimism after securing pole position for the Sprint through Lewis Hamilton, while Charles Leclerc claimed fourth on the grid following another encouraging display from the SF-26.
Although Leclerc narrowly missed out on a front-row start after being edged by Max Verstappen by just six thousandths of a second, the Monegasque was pleased by Ferrari's competitiveness at a circuit where the team had not expected to be among the frontrunners.
Leclerc admitted he was unable to extract the very last bit of performance from the car during the decisive SQ3 lap, but remained upbeat about Ferrari's prospects for the remainder of the weekend.
"I was quite confident coming into Q3, but I was just missing that final bit to really take the car to the limit on every lap," the Monegasque said.
"We didn’t expect to be as competitive as we have shown to be today on a track like this, so it’s a positive. Let’s see what we can do in the Sprint tomorrow and then focus on qualifying."»
Ferrari looked competitive throughout Sprint Qualifying, with both drivers progressing comfortably through SQ1 and SQ2 on the mandatory medium tyres before switching to softs for the single-lap shootout in SQ3.
Hamilton produced an outstanding lap of 1:28.376 to beat championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just one hundredth of a second and secure his second career Sprint pole, while Leclerc's 1:28.703 placed him fourth on the grid.
Team principal Fred Vasseur praised both Hamilton and the team's preparation ahead of the Sprint weekend, highlighting the importance of arriving well prepared given the limited track time available under the Sprint format.
"Congratulations to Lewis and to the whole team on today's result," Vasseur said. "In a Sprint weekend, the preparation work done back in Maranello is even more important than usual, so I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard before we arrived here."»
Vasseur was delighted to see Hamilton begin his home event in the best possible fashion, while also stressing that Friday's result is only the first step in what Ferrari hopes will be a strong weekend.
"It's the ideal way for Lewis to start his home weekend, but we know we haven't achieved anything yet."
With Leclerc starting from the second row, Vasseur believes Ferrari is well placed to gather valuable information in Saturday's Sprint before shifting its attention to Grand Prix qualifying later in the day.
"Charles is also in a good position, and tomorrow's Sprint will give us some important indications for the rest of the weekend. Our objective is to score plenty of points in the Sprint and then immediately switch our full focus to qualifying for the Grand Prix, with the aim of securing another solid result."
