‘We’ve got to look into it’ - Charles Leclerc confused by loss of qualifying pace

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari need to “look into” the reasons for their mysterious loss of qualifying pace after a disappointing performance at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix.

Leclerc ran out of sync to his rivals in Q3 and completed just a single lap due to quickly burning through his soft tyres, but struggled for pace and could only qualify eighth on the grid at Suzuka.

The Monegasque was left baffled by his lack of speed and has called for a Ferrari investigation into it.

“I think from Q1 to Q2 it hasn’t been a strong session,” Leclerc said.

“Already the first lap in Q1, I was [thinking] okay, the feeling is quite okay. Normally when it is the case, the time comes with it. Today it has been completely the opposite. So we’ve got to look into it.”

Leclerc suspects the performance drop-off is tyre-related.

“It’s one of those sessions maybe you get it once in a season. It’s definitely not a good feeling,” he explained. 

“Everything feels okay, the balance is not way off – we can always improve, but in a bit, like every qualifying. If I rely on the feeling at the end of the lap, I’m like, okay, this is quite a good lap and this is a good lap. Then you look at the board and you are a second off.

“When this happens, normally we look more at tyres and the way you bring the tyres to temperature. I’ve tried many different things today and it didn’t work, any of the things I’ve tried. So for now I don’t have the answer.”

He added: “The positive thing, if we have to find one, is that our race pace looks a bit stronger. But on a track like this qualifying position is extremely important and today we didn’t do a good job.”

Outgoing Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz enjoyed a better day on his way to claiming fourth.

“After FP3 we thought we didn’t have the pace as FP1 and we thought it was going to be a tougher weekend. And we actually made a good step in quali,” Sainz said.

“It’s just Lando [Norris] two-tenths in front for P3 was too much around this track. Here the gaps are very, very tight and two tenths was too much.

“But I did some very good laps in this quali, I’m happy with my performance. It’s just a track where the Ferrari is not the fastest car around and we know why.”