Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari’s race pace remains competitive but says the SF-26’s persistent qualifying weakness is continuing to compromise its chances on Sundays, with no short-term solution currently available. After starting from the third row at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, the Monegasque knew he faced a race of patience and chose the Hard tyres in the hope that a Safety Car or another favourable incident might transform his afternoon.
That opportunity never arrived. Ferrari was considerably closer to its rivals in race trim than over one lap, but once again the team paid for its inability to find the final tenths in qualifying. Charles Leclerc ultimately finished fourth after an alternative strategy, while Lewis Hamilton retired after only a handful of laps because of a problem with the braking system. The outcome reinforced a pattern that has followed the SF-26 through several recent Grands Prix: competitive long-run pace, but insufficient performance when everything has to be extracted from the car on Saturday.
Charles Leclerc says Ferrari’s qualifying weakness shaped the race
Looking back at Ferrari’s Madrid weekend, the obvious question is whether this was a Grand Prix without regrets or whether a stronger result was realistically available. Several times this season, the Scuderia has shown competitive race pace while lacking the final edge — and horsepower — in qualifying. The same weakness was visible again in Spain, where Ferrari’s Madrid qualifying data highlighted the challenge of extracting maximum performance from the SF-26 over a single lap.
Aside from Lewis Hamilton’s early retirement with a braking-system problem, Ferrari’s strategy for Charles Leclerc was effectively dictated by his starting position. The team did not want to put all its eggs in one basket and therefore split the strategies. Lewis Hamilton started on the set of Soft tyres saved from Saturday, while Charles Leclerc began on the Hard compound and prepared for a long opening stint.
The thinking was straightforward: extend the stint for as long as possible and hope that an incident such as a Safety Car or a red flag at the right moment could turn around a race in which Ferrari already knew overtaking would be extremely difficult. That opportunity never materialised. The only Virtual Safety Car of the race arrived too early to benefit Charles Leclerc’s strategy in the way Ferrari needed.
Ferrari kept Charles Leclerc in contention on the Hard tyres
Ferrari nevertheless tried to keep the strategy alive, managing the Hard-tyre stint as effectively as possible without suffering an obvious performance collapse. In reality, tyre degradation was very low across the field. After around 50 laps, for example, Pierre Gasly was setting times only four tenths slower than his personal best of the entire race, with a similar pattern visible for Liam Lawson.
Charles Leclerc still managed the situation extremely well and, for a long period, built himself enough of a margin that he could potentially have remained ahead of Lando Norris if a Virtual Safety Car had appeared at the right moment. The approach was consistent with Ferrari’s broader alternative Spanish GP strategy, which briefly put Charles Leclerc into the lead before the gamble eventually ran out of options.
There was a phase of the Grand Prix when George Russell, struggling on the Medium tyre, was finding it difficult to close the gap to the cars ahead. That also slowed Lando Norris behind him. At that point, a favourable incident could still have helped Ferrari, and Charles Leclerc kept that possibility alive by maintaining a remarkably stable pace.
While degradation was limited in the midfield but lap times fluctuated more significantly, Charles Leclerc continued circulating at a very consistent rhythm. That was the key to keeping Ferrari’s hopes alive.
“In the end, I think the pace was quite good on the Hard. On the Soft at the end, I couldn’t really push for other reasons, but the stint on the Hard was good,” Charles Leclerc explained after the race.
Why Charles Leclerc would choose the same Ferrari strategy again
Kimi Antonelli and Lando Norris both had more performance available than they showed during certain phases of the race. When Kimi Antonelli finally found himself in clean air, the Italian immediately lowered his lap times by well over a second. Even so, Ferrari needed Charles Leclerc to run exactly this type of race if it was to create an opportunity from his grid position.
That is also where the frustration comes from. As on other occasions, qualifying had already compromised Ferrari’s Sunday before the race had begun. Despite signs beforehand that Madring could suit the SF-26 better than Monza, the car’s stronger race performance could not fully compensate for starting further back.
“We could have done many different things, but I think the best choice for us today was the one we made. If I had to do the race again, I would do exactly the same thing, because starting on the Soft at the beginning wouldn’t have given me the opportunity to do something special. It would have ended with the same strategy as the drivers ahead and it wouldn’t have been very useful considering there were no overtakes.”
“Ultimately, what we are paying for is our qualifying pace, because when you start further back, it then becomes very difficult in the race to recover those positions,” Charles Leclerc added.
SF-26 remains stronger in the race than over one qualifying lap
Charles Leclerc stressed that the problem is also a characteristic of the SF-26 itself. There have been recent Grands Prix where Mercedes has been more consistent over a single qualifying lap than in race conditions, helped by its additional horsepower, while Ferrari’s situation has tended to be the opposite.
Beyond the power deficit, the SF-26 also struggles to find the ideal balance between the front and rear axles on the softer tyre compound when temperatures become critical. That difficulty was evident during qualifying, when Lewis Hamilton lost a tenth at the first chicane after suffering significant understeer even before beginning his final attempt. Ferrari’s ongoing efforts to understand these characteristics form part of the wider technical development of the SF-26.
“Yes, but I don’t really think we are worse than the others. I simply think our car is a little weaker in qualifying compared to the race, with less fuel when you really have to attack the kerbs, especially yesterday. McLaren was very, very strong and we were a little on the wrong side in that area, so we probably paid the price this weekend because of that. In general, I always feel that we struggle a little in qualifying.”
Charles Leclerc then highlighted another factor that becomes more difficult on Saturdays: energy deployment.
“I think our car is very strong in the race, but we need to understand how to unlock more performance in qualifying. We know that deployment is even more complicated, in my opinion, on Saturday compared to Sunday. We don’t have solutions in the short term, but anything we can do to gain a little more performance on Saturday will be very useful for Sunday’s result.”
Small technical issue prevented Charles Leclerc pushing on Soft tyres
Returning to the race itself, Charles Leclerc also explained why he was unable to push properly during his final stint on the Soft tyres. Ferrari correctly chose to bring his pit stop forward by a few laps to ensure there was sufficient margin over George Russell in case anything went wrong during the stop.
However, once back on track, Charles Leclerc encountered a minor technical issue that prevented him from attacking at full pace. Ferrari’s engineers guided him over the radio on how to manage the problem, but Charles Leclerc has already clarified that it is not expected to have any impact on the upcoming races.
Lewis Hamilton’s retirement had already left Ferrari with only one car in contention, after the Briton developed a serious braking issue early in the Grand Prix. The problem was significant enough for Ferrari to stop the car rather than risk continuing, bringing an early end to Lewis Hamilton’s Spanish Grand Prix.
For Charles Leclerc, however, the central conclusion from Madrid was less about the race strategy itself and more about what had happened the previous day. Ferrari could manage the Hard tyres, run consistently and keep alternative strategic possibilities alive, but those options were ultimately created by starting too far back. Until the SF-26 can unlock more performance over a single qualifying lap, its strong Sunday pace may continue to be used to recover lost ground rather than fight from the front.
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