Charles Leclerc has acknowledged that Ferrari will need to deliver a "special" performance in Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix to keep their fading championship hopes alive against rival McLaren.
Despite a promising FP1 session on Friday, the Scuderia struggled to uphold its early pace in the following sessions and especially in qualifying.
Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz concluded the evening’s shootout respectively fifth and seventh, while their McLaren rivals locked out the second row of Sunday’s grid.
“Honestly, today was the best we could do,” Leclerc told the media after qualifying.“I was really happy with both of my laps.
“There was very little between them, I think two, three hundredths, but there wasn’t anything more in the car today.”
While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen transformed his car’s performance with “aggressive” setup changes to snatch pole, Ferrari took a more conservative approach, making only minor tweaks to the SF-24.
“On our side, we fine-tuned a lot of things, let’s say,” he explained. “So, small details everywhere, but we did change the car.
“And it definitely felt a lot better. However, the performance of the car was just what it was.”
Adding to Ferrari’s woes was the unexpectedly strong showing from both Red Bull and Mercedes, with George Russell taking a front-row spot alongside Verstappen for Sunday’s race.
“It was surprising for us to see them so fast. We did not expect them to be so strong,” Leclerc noted.
Ferrari has struggled with high-speed performance compared to McLaren, a lingering weakness that continues to shape the title battle.
“I honestly think that we are much closer than what we thought compared to McLaren,” Leclerc said. “However, compared to Mercedes and Red Bull, it’s another story.
“But McLaren, we expected them to be better compared to us. All in all, we are fighting McLaren. We have a good race pace, and everything is possible.”
Despite starting behind McLaren, Leclerc was cautious about whether the presence of Mercedes and Red Bull ahead might work to Ferrari’s advantage.
“It depends [on] the way you see it,” the Scuderia charger pondered. “Because if tomorrow we overtake them at the start, then I wish the two in front were not there. If we stay behind at the start, then I’m happy if they can keep the first and second place.”
©Ferrari
As Ferrari enters Sunday’s race with the championship slipping away, Leclerc acknowledged the team must outperform its pre-race projections.
“Realistically, yes, but we still had hope that we could turn the situation around,” he said. “Because at the end, if we want to win the Constructors, we’ve got to finish in front this weekend. And we cannot afford to just take the points available.
“We need to overperform in order to target the Constructors. Tomorrow, we’ve got to do something special in order to gain some points on them.”
With McLaren riding high and Ferrari scrambling for a breakthrough, the Qatar GP promises to be a pivotal showdown in the race for Constructors' glory.
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