During qualifying, Charles Leclerc drove the second fastest time, which becomes twelfth on the starting grid due to a grid penalty. In itself a decent qualification for Leclerc, but the Monegask is worried about Red Bull’s pace.
Before the start of qualifying, Leclerc already knew due to his grid penalty that he could start the race from P11 in the best case scenario. Leclerc probably even took P13 into account, knowing that both Red Bulls would probably be faster in qualifying anyway.
With twelfth place on the starting grid, Leclerc is therefore quite satisfied, although he is mainly concerned about Red Bull’s general speed. After all, Leclerc was one and a half tenths slower than Perez during qualifying, but he was in turn almost half a second slower than Verstappen before the Dutchman had to deal with a technical problem in Q2.
“Am I happy? Yes and no,” said Leclerc afterwards. “On the one hand, in terms of speed, this is a very difficult weekend for us.”
“But I am very satisfied with my round. I think I got everything out. It was really very, very on the limit.”
“On the other hand, Red Bull is currently on a different planet and we are experiencing some problems. We have to keep pushing but that’s what we do as a team.”