The Italian squad had impressed in Friday follow however, in its preparations for qualifying, the group appeared to lack tempo at the beginning of the lap relative to the automobiles forward of it within the battle for pole place.
GPS traces present that his Ferrari was between 3-4kph slower on the straights in comparison with the 2 McLarens, and much more in arrears in comparison with polesitter Max Verstappen – due to the tow the Pink Bull driver picked up from Nico Hulkenberg.
Leclerc felt that Ferrari’s final grid positions, which turned third and fourth when Oscar Piastri was given a three-place grid drop for impeding Kevin Magnussen in FP1, value a shot at something greater than third.
“Wanting again at yesterday, reanalysing qualifying. I believe we principally misplaced every thing on the launch [of the lap] for some motive,” he stated.
“We had a barely completely different energy technique in comparison with McLaren and Pink Bull, and we misplaced every thing on the run all the way down to Flip 2 – Max, on high of that, had the slipstream.
“That is one thing we’ll should look into as a result of, particularly on a observe like this, observe place is completely every thing.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Picture by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“While you solely have a tenth in between Pink Bull, McLaren, and ourselves, we have to do every thing excellent and the third place right this moment value us possibly a greater consequence within the race.”
Explaining his first impressions of Ferrari’s complete suite of upgrades for the Imola race, Leclerc contended that it was troublesome to guage them given the calls for of the Imola circuit.
However he was assured that the group had attained its targets with the brand new bodywork, ground, and wings that it had put in for its residence race.
“I believe initially, it is not the very best observe to guage upgrades, principally as a result of kerb-riding is such a factor right here that when you have automobile on kerbs, then that might conceal a bit extra what’s the actual order,” the Monegasque stated.
“The great factor is that every thing we anticipated from these upgrades, we had it by way of information. It did precisely what it was imagined to do, which is at all times factor.”