Frustrated Leclerc sees potential for a chaotic Monaco GP

Charles Leclerc says he is extremely disappointed not to be on pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix after topping all three practice sessions at his home race.

Ferrari was not expecting to be particularly competitive in qualifying in Monaco after struggling to get one-lap performance out of its car at the majority of tracks this year, but Leclerc was instantly quick from FP1 onwards. After sweeping all three practice sessions, Leclerc was also provisionally on pole position after his final Q3 run but was then beaten by Lando Norris and had to settle for second on the grid.

“No, I’m not satisfied, because you forget very quickly with the expectations that you have going into a weekend when free practices are going so well,” Leclerc said. “I think we were wrong with the expectations that we had. And at the end of the day, it was a lot more positive than what we initially thought.

“We still need to understand why, to be completely honest. For me, it’s an unknown. I don’t quite know why we are so fast in slow speed suddenly, but we’ll analyze that after the weekend. But no, disappointment is big.”

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Despite being fastest throughout practice, Leclerc says he had noticed from other driver’s laps that he was leaving less margin than his rivals and was aware he’d face a fight for pole.

“It was a good lap, but it was a bit of a tricky Q3," he related. "In the first run of Q3, I had Max [Verstappen] in the second sector and lost a lot of lap time there. So, obviously, when you don’t have that first time in Q3, then you have a little bit less confidence to go flat out on the second run.

“I don’t think this made the difference at the end of the day. I haven’t seen exactly the gaps, but I think it’s bigger than a few hundredths. So, it is the way it is.

“I’m obviously disappointed – being at home and being on top of every free practice session was a good sign. But I kind of felt it already in FP3 where I knew that I was putting laps very much on the limit. And when you look at the onboard, you can see drivers that are taking a bit of a step back. So I knew it would be close, but at the end of the day, I didn’t get it this year.”

One opportunity for Leclerc to move forward is with the new mandatory two-stop rules that have been introduced in Monaco, but he believes it’s more likely going to provide chances for those taking risks further back.

“I think it’s going to be a bit of chaos tomorrow, but we’ll see how it plays out. I think there’ll be a lot of strategy games, and we’ll see who comes out on top. But I think we might be under pressure from cars that we probably don’t expect, from the back, which might make everything interesting.”