Charles Leclerc admits he’s ‘not used’ to working on Qualifying pace after being outperformed by Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz has been the lead Ferrari driver since the start of the 2024 season. The Spaniard has stood on the podium every single time he has participated in a race. Moreover, the 29-year-old broke the Red Bull winning streak in Australia by bringing the trophy to Maranello. Sainz’s impressive run of performances has asked questions about the superiority of one over the other, and Charles Leclerc has reflected on the same.

Carlos Sainz was thrown under the bus even before the commencement of the season when he got to know that Mercedes star, Lewis Hamilton is bound to replace him at Ferrari. This left the 29-year-old in the midst of to scramble for his seemingly diminishing future in F1.

On the contrary, this announcement may have acted as motivation for the Spaniard who has now outshined Charles Leclerc in all the races he has participated. Moreover, the Monegasque was revered for his qualifying pace but has been out-qualified by his teammate more often than not.

Subsequently, Leclerc has admitted to his lack of pace in comparison to Sainz. The 26-year-old affirmed that it’s his qualifying performance that was holding him back. However, it is an unusual phenomenon for him as he never had to work on his qualifying performance as he is regarded as one of the best on the current grid. But now Leclerc has to work on it as Sainz seems to have the upper hand in the intra-team battle.

It's my qualifying pace [which is the problem]. It is not something that I've not been very used to in my career to be working on my qualifying pace, because normally it's pretty good on the Saturday.

Charles Leclerc said in an interview with RacingNews365

Fred Vasseur contradicts Charles Leclerc’s stance

Sainz seems to have a leg over his Monegasque teammate when it comes to qualifying and even the race. However, Ferrari team principal, Fred Vasseur has defended his star driver. The Frenchman dismissed any allegations of Leclerc being ‘slow’ when compared to his ousted teammate.

The Frenchman was aware of the deficit between Sainz and Leclerc but defended the latter for his botched qualifying performances. The 55-year-old was adamant that such occasions of Leclerc not being on pace are one-offs. Moreover, the Japanese GP weekend was an exception. As Leclerc only had a single set of tires for the Q3 run and had to be more cautious.

We didn’t take the right approach, but I am convinced that Charles is a competitor, he is a good one on the one lap and he’ll be back.

Fred Vasseur said in the aforementioned interview

However, despite being saved by his team principal, it is evident that Carlos Sainz can extract the performance out of the SF-24, unlike Charles Leclerc. Thus eyes around the paddock will be centered around the Scarlet duo to find out whether the Monegasque improves on his subpar run of performances or not.

In case you missed it:

• Christian Horner breaks silence on ‘big boy’ Daniel Ricciardo’s disappointing outing against Yuki Tsunoda at Suzuka
• Lewis Hamilton walks out of interview after question on jealousy over Ferrari’s form

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