Leclerc happy with P7 qualifying recovery after initial struggles

Sauber's Charles Leclerc was delighted to secure a spot among the top-ten in qualifying at Sochi following the struggles that hampered his performance on Friday's opening day of running.

The 20-year-old Ferrari-bound driver will line up P7 on Sunday's Russian Grand Prix grid, edged out by Force India's Esteban Ocon by just 0.006s.

"To be honest I'm very happy with my lap," said the Monegasque.

"When you see six thousandths (of a second) in between Esteban and myself, we probably could have improved something but he probably could have also.

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"Very happy with 7th which I think is the best starting position for me this year, which is quite nice, and especially considering the Friday I had

"We struggled quite a lot with the set-up in FP1, to work from there and improve that much for qualifying is something I was working to and I'm really happy to see the result."

Despite starting in  the upper tier of the grid, Leclerc is expecting to work hard to hold his own against Red Bull and Renault's demoted chargers who will likely fill his mirrors at some point on Sunday afternoon.

"There are some fast cars starting in the back of us," he acknowledged.

"If they can overtake it will be difficult to keep them behind - the Red Bulls for example. It will also be interesting to see how Renault will do because they will start on a different strategy.

"It's going to be an interesting race but I don't see why we couldn't keep this position. I'll try to push as much as possible to not see them in the mirrors!"

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