‘Eight Tenths?!’ Leclerc left astonished by Mercedes advantage

Charles Leclerc has admitted he could scarcely believe the performance level shown by Mercedes on Saturday in Melbourne, revealing he initially thought the data he was seeing was simply wrong.

The Ferrari driver will start Sunday’s Australian GP from fourth on the grid at Albert Park Circuit after a dominant showing by Mercedes, where George Russell secured pole position ahead of team-mate Kimi Antonelli.

The scale of the Silver Arrows’ advantage – nearly eight tenths clear of the field – left Leclerc openly astonished.

“I think yesterday when we spoke I said half second,” he told reporters after qualifying. “Now it's eight [tenths]. So it's bigger than what I expected, for sure, but it was a very significant gap yesterday already.

“So I was very, very impressed this morning with the FP3 power that they've shown.

For Leclerc, the figures were so surprising that the first instinct was to question the numbers rather than the Mercedes speed.

"It was just crazy, in the last lap of George especially, I looked at the data for the first time, and I had to re-upload it because I thought there was a problem on the things I was seeing,” he added. “But apparently not. So it's very, very impressive.”

Ferrari Hindered by Qualifying Issues

While Mercedes broke clear, Ferrari’s own session was compromised by technical issues that left both Leclerc and team-mate Lewis Hamilton struggling to extract the car’s full potential.

The Monegasque explained that problems with the energy deployment system affected the team during the crucial middle phase of qualifying.

“We've had some issues during our qualifying, so I think there's more pace for us,” he said. “In Q2 we've had issues with the deployment on both cars. In Q3 we had to kind of catch up the Q2 that we had missed.

“And with these cars, every lap you lose is a big disadvantage. So for sure, we weren't optimised for Q3 but yeah, at the end, they did a better job.”

Despite Ferrari’s difficulties, the eight-time Grand Prix winner admitted the performance gap to Mercedes remains substantial.

“I hope that very soon we are back a little bit closer to the guys in front. But it's a huge gap, so it will take a relatively long time,” he said.

Race Still Full of Uncertainty

Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, Leclerc suggested there may be opportunities at the start – though he cautioned against exaggerated expectations about Ferrari’s launch performance.

“I think there is a wrong expectation about the starts for the start tomorrow,” he said.

“I think our engine is a bit easier to have a good start, but I think that if Mercedes does everything optimised, there won't be that much of a difference.

"But it surely will be a little bit trickier for them to get in the right window."

More broadly, the Ferrari driver believes the opening race of the season could still produce unpredictable racing as teams and drivers continue adapting to Formula 1’s latest technical regulations.

“There are lots of unknowns for sure,” he added. “I don't really know how it's going to go. You can easily pass cars on the first lap.

“You can very easily then get passed by half of the grid on the next lap, if you go so stupid. So I don't know if it will end up everybody not doing anything, or seeing some crazy things, but I guess we'll wait and see tomorrow."

For now, though, Leclerc’s overriding impression of the Melbourne weekend remains one of disbelief – not at Ferrari’s struggles, but at just how far ahead Mercedes appears to be.

Read also: Mercedes ‘in the best place possible’ after Melbourne pole - Russell

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