It wasn’t a brilliant qualifying session for the Ferraris at the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit, with the Monegasque driver set to line up in sixth position tomorrow, but with the belief that the setup of his SF-24 is more suited to tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, where he aims for the podium. Meanwhile, he has cleared things up with Carlos Sainz after the Sprint contact.
Saturday in Shanghai wasn’t particularly thrilling for the Ferrari cars. After missing out on the podium in the Sprint, with a contact and tensions between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz towards the end, the SF-24s failed to challenge the top two rows of the Chinese Grand Prix starting grid: the Monegasque driver will start from the sixth slot and the Spaniard from seventh.
A situation that could complicate the plans for the Scuderia. As Charles Leclerc explained to Sky Sport F1 microphones, although most of the gap was noticed in the first sector, this time it wasn’t so much a matter of tire preparation but rather of setting choices made more with the race in mind than for the qualifying performance.
“Today, I think it wasn’t all about tire preparation because we made a step forward in that aspect. It’s more about the characteristics of the first sector: I knew that in qualifying, we would sacrifice some performance there to favor tomorrow’s race. We have a good setup, it’s just a pity that within a second and a half, we were all there,” explained Charles Leclerc.
When asked if one could speak of disappointment for this qualifying, he added, “Yes, because I didn’t expect this situation. In Q1, the feeling was quite good, but then in Q3, the wind changed, and we lost a bit of feeling with the car.” – he pointed out.
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However, the belief is to turn the situation around tomorrow, even though a less tightly contested race than this morning’s Sprint would be needed: “It’s Sunday that counts. I said it often last year when we were happy on Saturday and disappointed on Sunday. The goal for tomorrow is the podium, although it won’t be easy, especially if we have a race like this morning’s, where we were all in a train with DRS. In that case, overtaking becomes very difficult. If it’s not like that, I think we can have a good race.” – the Monegasque driver explained.
Finally, Charles Leclerc revealed that there has already been a clarification between him and Carlos Sainz after the Sprint contact and that the Maranello team has already moved past the issue: “Yes, yes, there are no problems.”
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