If Friday in Melbourne had finally been promising, Saturday and qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix brought Ferrari – and its fans – back down to earth.
The fifth and seventh place obtained respectively by Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc illustrate the situation of the Prancing Horse team. Sure, the gaps from second place aren’t abysmal, but they give the idea of a session that started with certain expectations and ended in disappointment.
At the end of the official tests of the third Formula 1 round of the season, Leclerc presented himself to the Sky microphones with some regret, but also with the clear intention of understanding what happened in Q3.
In the last attempt, Leclerc only completed one lap (contrary to what had been done up to that moment), while Sainz did two. This was for fear of the rain: if it had arrived, the Ferrari driver would not have been able to make another attempt.
Once he set off for the last fast lap, Leclerc found himself in front of his teammate Sainz throughout the first sector, with the Spaniard intent – rightly – on warming up his tires well. This inevitably disturbed Charles, who certainly didn’t omit what happened in the mix zone of the Melbourne city track.
“I had no petrol. But we were afraid the rain would come and we decided to only do one introductory lap and not two. Unfortunately we missed too much to be more in front. Then we have to see with the team what happened with Sainz in the first sector in Q3, because it was clear that I had to push immediately after the first flying lap, while he did 2”.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“Carlos was in front of me throughout the first sector preparing his tyres, and that’s a bit… it’s a bit of a shame. But then to say that I would have done much better… I wouldn’t get to this point. We would have Could have improved just a little bit.”
Qualifying, the least critical point of the SF-23s, went badly. Now the wait is all for the race. Leclerc admitted that he had a car that voted better in the race due to the choice of set-up, but he also underlined how he had to do better on the flying lap, thus avoiding not assuming responsibility for today’s result.
“I definitely have a bit more of a race car, but yeah, it doesn’t justify our seventh place today. We had more potential in the car. I should have done a better job, and I should have managed everything better.”
The biggest surprise of the Australian official tests is represented by the second and third place of the Mercedes. The W14s looked to be a long way off the battle as well to be second and third force this weekend. Instead, they transformed themselves into qualifying, signing a textbook Q3 (taking into account the current difficulties).
“I’m not surprised by Mercedes in the sense that I haven’t focused too much on them until now. I was very focused on ourselves, on the feeling with the car, so I didn’t look around too much,” concluded Leclerc.
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