Leclerc singles out Ferrari qualifying conundrum

Ferrari may not have a fundamental speed problem with its SF-26, but Charles Leclerc believes there is a particular area where the car is leaving too much performance on the table when qualifying comes around.

The Monegasque’s diagnosis came after a Spanish Grand Prix weekend in which Ferrari once again appeared capable of much more over race distance than its qualifying position suggested.

Leclerc eventually finished fourth at the Madring after enjoying an extended spell at the front of the field, only for his strategy to leave him vulnerable when the anticipated Safety Car failed to materialise. Kimi Antonelli inherited the lead when he made his own pit stop and went on to claim victory.

The contrast between Ferrari's race pace and its one-lap performance was telling. Leclerc had already suggested that the Scuderia had deliberately leaned towards Sunday performance, but he now believes the problem is less about the SF-26's fundamental pace and more about how much of that performance can be extracted when fuel loads are low.

“I really don’t think we are worse than the others,” he said in Madrid. “I just think that, generally, our car is just a little bit weaker in qualifying than it is in the race with lower fuel.”

Kerbs exposing Ferrari’s weakness

The Spanish weekend provided Leclerc with a particularly clear example of where Ferrari was losing ground.

With the Madring demanding aggressive use of its kerbs, McLaren’s Lando Norris appeared especially comfortable throwing his car over the more punishing sections of the circuit, and subsequently achieving pole on Saturday.

For Leclerc, the difference was not simply a matter of headline lap time. The SF-26 was struggling to extract the same performance when drivers had to attack the track aggressively on a low-fuel run.

“When you’ve got to really attack the kerbs, particularly yesterday, McLaren was very, very strong, and we were a bit on the wrong side of things on that,” he said.

“So, we paid the price this weekend, probably because of this. But as a whole, I always feel like we are a bit on the back foot in quali.”

Indeed, that weakness becomes particularly costly in a qualifying session, where the difference between a strong and mediocre lap can come down to a handful of corners – and, increasingly, how aggressively a driver can exploit every inch of the circuit.

Ferrari has remained Mercedes' principal challenger across much of the season, but McLaren's recent resurgence has complicated that picture. At the Madring, Leclerc could only salvage fourth while Lewis Hamilton's race ended prematurely with a brake-related failure.

Yet team principal Fred Vasseur believes the issue goes beyond the SF-26's ability to produce outright qualifying speed.

Vasseur wants Ferrari to sustain momentum in qualifying

The Frenchman’s concern is that Ferrari is failing to convert its pace as qualifying progresses, leaving the team vulnerable when the final and most important runs arrive.

“If you take Zandvoort and this one, the final outcome is a bit the same for us, that we had a decent pace in quali, but we didn’t put everything together on the last attempt and race pace is OK,” Vasseur said.

For the Ferrari boss, therefore, the priority is not necessarily finding another chunk of raw performance. It is learning how to unlock the performance already available as the session develops.

“If I have to put the focus on the team on something today, it will be the evolution of the pace during the quali more than the pace in quali, the evolution, the step that you can do through the session,” he explained.

Vasseur pointed to the constantly shifting competitive picture across the qualifying segments as evidence that Ferrari's speed is not consistently being converted into lap time when it matters most.

“If you have a look on the quali, it’s true that if you have a look at the four stints in quali, one time it’s Max, one time it’s Lewis, one time it’s Kimi, one time it’s Lewis, Q1 and the four stints, and we finished the most important in P4,” Vasseur said. “This, we need to improve.”

• Read also: Leclerc defends Ferrari call as Vasseur sees missed Madring win

And there is one reason for Ferrari to believe the problem is fixable rather than fundamental: the pace is still appearing when the fuel comes out of the equation and the race settles into its rhythm.

“We need to improve because I think when you have a look at the pace during the race, the pace is there,” Vasseur concluded.

For Leclerc, however, the message is already clear. Ferrari doesn't necessarily need to find a faster SF-26 – it needs to make the one it has happier when the driver asks it to attack the kerbs, squeeze out the final tenths and deliver everything in a single qualifying lap.

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