Only sixth on the grid at Zandvoort, Charles Leclerc admits that several errors disrupted his Q3, even though he believes Ferrari did not have the potential to fight for pole.
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After impressing on Friday and then securing second place in the Sprint, Charles Leclerc hoped to confirm Ferrari’s competitiveness during the Dutch Grand Prix qualifying. The result ultimately proved more disappointing.
The Monegasque only managed the sixth fastest time at Zandvoort, just behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton. Ahead of the two Ferraris, McLaren and Mercedes monopolized the first two rows, with Lando Norris on pole ahead of George Russell, Kimi Antonelli, and Oscar Piastri.
A significant contrast with the Sprint qualifying, during which Leclerc had finished only 0.055 seconds off pole. But the Ferrari driver believes that this closeness to the leaders was somewhat misleading.
Leclerc expected to see Mercedes and McLaren improve
Unlike Ferrari, which seemed to have already found a good balance on Friday, Leclerc thinks that Mercedes and McLaren still had significant room for improvement after the first day.
“I don’t think it was due to changes made to the car,” Leclerc explains. “Talking a bit with Lando and George, I got the feeling that on Friday, they hadn’t done everything perfectly or that their car wasn’t working exactly as they wanted.”
The situation was different for Leclerc, who quickly felt comfortable with his SF-26.
“On my side, the car was working quite well on Friday. So I knew that we probably had a bit less room for improvement than them.”
This analysis was confirmed on Saturday. Norris took pole while the two Mercedes and the other McLaren also outpaced Ferrari.
An error on engine modes in Q3
Leclerc nevertheless admits that Ferrari did not execute their session perfectly. A change made between Q2 and Q3 regarding the power modes of his car notably disrupted his feel at the decisive moment.
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“We made some mistakes changing the power modes between Q2 and Q3,” he reveals.
A problem that did not necessarily cost Ferrari several positions, but that sufficiently altered the car’s behavior to unsettle Leclerc.
“It disturbed me a bit in terms of the feel I had with the car. We will have to analyze that.”
On a circuit like Zandvoort, where confidence plays a crucial role in fast sequences, the slightest change in behavior can quickly translate into a few precious tenths lost.
Leclerc does not think pole was possible
Despite this error, Leclerc does not try to make it seem that Ferrari could have beaten Norris and the Mercedes with a perfect execution.
“I don’t think we had the potential anyway to get pole position.”
Ferrari therefore seems to have reached the limits of its package more quickly during the weekend, while McLaren and Mercedes managed to extract more performance between the Sprint qualifying and the main session.
The race could however reshuffle the cards. Leclerc had shown excellent pace during the Sprint by overtaking Norris to finish second behind Russell. Starting from sixth position, the Monegasque will now have to reproduce that performance if he wants to bring Ferrari back into the fight for the podium.
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