Leclerc 'pushed too hard' but qualifying 'not a disaster'

Charles Leclerc insisted that his qualifying result was not a disaster for Ferrari, but admitted that he had pushed too hard on his final Q3 lap and that he had been 'bitten' as a result.

Leclerc had been targeting a start from the second row of the grid, but will instead line-up in sixth place, in part thanks to McLaren driver Oscar Piastri having his fastest Q3 laptime deleted for exceeding track limits.

Leclerc knows what that sort of excursion feels like, as he made three mistakes on his own push lap which cost him any chance of improving on his earlier effort.

“It’s frustrating because whenever you know you have the potential to do well and you do a mistake yourself," Leclerc told the media in the paddock at the Red Bull Ring. "It always hurts."

The first mistake came at turn 4, and the errors that followed were a result of trying to salvage something out of the situation and pushing too hard to recover.

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“Turns 1 and 3 were really, really good in my last lap, I was two tenths faster than my [first] lap, but then I did a mistake in turn four," he explained.

“I tried even more to catch back some time in turn 6 and lost it. I tried the same in turn 9 and lost it again," he sighed. "“It’s life. It paid off more than it hurt this year, by pushing that way in qualifying. Today it bit me.

“Obviously I’m a bit disappointed," he admitted. "Especially because with the team we had two or three races where we had a tough time, and I feel like today was an opportunity to be back in the top three.

"P7 [sic] is not good but it’s not a disaster. I didn’t do a good job on that second lap, but the first lap on scrubbed tyres was really good," he pointed out, adding that he was already in a better position than he had been for the Sprint race earlier in the day.

A problem in Sprint Qualifying left him starting from tenth place, and he made up three places during the race. If he can do that again tomorrow it would put him on the podium - but that's a tough ask.

"I believe we can aim for the podium," he said. “It’s looking better than what it looked this morning because we are in a different configuration that should help a little bit more the race pace tomorrow.

"Our performance in the Sprint race this morning wasn’t great, after which we worked on changing the car set-up looking for those few precious tenths we were lacking both for qualifying and for the race.

"I’m looking forward to it and we’ll see where we are," he continued, while ruling out any chance of challenging front row starters Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

“I think Lando and Max is not going to be possible tomorrow, they are too fast this weekend,” he acknowledged. But he had more hope of taking the fight to George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, and staying ahead of Oscar Piastri.

“With the Mercedes we’ve been close all weekend, but I feel like we do everything perfect then we can beat them," he commented. "Oscar is going to be tricky, but he’s starting behind [in P7] so maybe we can keep that position."

Leclerc's current team mate Carlos Sainz will be one of the cars ahead of him on the grid that he will have to pass to get on the podium, and the Spaniard has no plans to make it easy for the Monegasque as he eyes his own chances.

"We are where I imagined we could be," he said after qualifying in fourth place alongside Russell who pipped him by just a hundredth of a second. "I feel that we are improving and we were very close to P3.

"The goal for tomorrow is clearly the podium," he acknowledged. "We know it will be difficult, but we will give it our all as we always do.

"We have gained more speed and made some changes that have definitely helped us overall. We are still struggling in fast corners but we are working very hard with the team to understand how to address it."

"A lot will depend on the start and on lap 1," contributed ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur. "But compared to the Sprint, strategy and pit stops are involved and everyone will play a bit with these factors.

"We saw today that DRS trains develop and if you are in the right position in it, then you can gain quite a bit," he added.

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