“I’m quite confident on improving pretty quickly.” – Those were the words of Charles Leclerc heading into the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. Well, there is no denying that Leclerc is an extremely fast qualifier. However, despite claiming he has gotten on top of his qualifying issues, Leclerc could only manage to secure a P7, two places behind Sainz.

Now it should be taken into account that the track conditions were extremely difficult for all the drivers as the track conditions went from dry to wet in SQ2. However, Charles Leclerc was the only driver who found himself struggling during the final part of qualifying. This mishap forced him to return to the pits for repairs and a change of tires. And team principal Frederic Vasseur was obviously not very happy with the results as he mentioned to Motorsport Italy.

Vasseur highlighted the importance of learning from the challenging session, as the team had limited experience with the track in such extreme conditions. Speaking about Leclerc’s incident, the Frenchman said, “I haven’t spoken to Charles yet, so I’m not sure what happened. It’s true that the conditions were very treacherous with very little grip and we struggled to warm up the tires, but it was the same for everyone.“

What also impacted the final part of qualifying for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz was the fact that the two were stuck in the pit lane behind other cars and lost all temperature in their tires. Both Ferraris struggled to bring back the temperature for their flying runs and had to settle for P5 and P7 on the grid.

The Monegasque driver was left fuming at himself after the mistake in Sprint qualifying that cost him another qualifying session against his teammate.

Charles Leclerc blames his aggression for qualifying mistake

In the post-qualifying interviews, Charles Leclerc explained how he suffered from bent steering after he made the error on the out-lap. This mistake, Leclerc admitted, cost him time and left him feeling frustrated, as he failed to maximize his pace over the next flying lap.

“To be honest, the very first out-lap was extremely tricky,” said Leclerc. “It was very difficult to switch on the tires. I tried to be a bit aggressive, but obviously I lost it out of Turn 8. That compromised our quali a little bit as the steering wheel was a little bit bent, but all in all, I don’t think there was any miracles. Obviously on my side, again I didn’t maximize qualifying, which I’m not happy with.”

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Looking ahead to the rest of the weekend, Leclerc is determined to make up for his mistake and show his potential during Saturday’s qualifying. With the rain potentially affecting the outcome of the Sprint Race, Leclerc sees Sunday’s main race as another opportunity to maximize his weekend and possibly beat his teammate for the first time this season.

Can Charles Leclerc take his Ferrari into the podium position in tomorrow’s Sprint? What are your predictions for the win?