“Today it bit me” - Charles Leclerc admits he pushed too hard in Austrian GP F1 qualifying

Charles Leclerc has conceded that his approach to F1 qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix didn’t pay off after running off the track on his final effort in Q3.

Leclerc was unable to improve on his last lap in qualifying, leaving him only sixth on the grid.

The Monegasque had set a strong lap on used softs, putting him fourth in the order, but he dropped down to seventh after his error-strewn lap.

Leclerc initially ran wide at Turn 6 and then did the same into the final two corners.

The Ferrari driver was promoted to sixth after Oscar Piastri’s best lap - which was good enough for third - was invalidated for track limits.

Reflecting on qualifying, Leclerc said: “It’s frustrating, because whenever you know you have the potential to do well, and you make a mistake yourself, it always hurts.

“But it’s like this, it’s not a disaster. P7 is not good, I think a P3 was possible today. Turn 1 and 3 was really, really good in my last lap. I was two-tenths faster than my lap, and then I did a mistake in Turn 4, tried even more to catch back some time in Turn 6, lost it, tried the same in Turn 9, lost it.

“It’s life. I think it paid off more than it hurt this year by pushing that way in qualifying. Today it bit me. And yeah. It’s obviously, I’m a bit disappointed, especially because the team we had two races or two, three races where we had a tough time, and I felt like today was an opportunity to be back in the top three.

“But I didn’t do a good job on that second lap. But the first lap on the scrubbed tire was really good.”

Regardless, Leclerc was buoyed by Ferrari’s improvement from the sprint race.

Leclerc could only finish seventh in the sprint after starting down in 10th due to an anti-stall issue in qualifying on Friday.

However, he was unable to make any progress beyond the first lap.

“I think it’s looking better than what it looked for this morning, because we are in a different configuration that should help a little bit more the race pace tomorrow,” he added.

“So yeah. I’m looking forward to it, and we’ll see where we are tomorrow.”