Charles Leclerc finishes well behind the McLaren drivers in Qatar and even behind crash victim George Russell – But why the Monegasque doesn’t want to panic

He was “definitely” hoping for more from the 2023 Qatar Formula One weekend, admits Charles Leclerc after Sunday’s race. The Monegasque finished fifth, a day earlier in the sprint he had even missed out on the points altogether in twelfth place.

On paper, P5 may not look too bad at first glance. But Leclerc ended up behind Mercedes driver George Russell, who collided with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the first corner.

Russell then had to come into the pits and was last after the first race lap. Nevertheless, he finished fourth, ahead of the only Ferrari in the field. This was because Carlos Sainz could not even take part in the race in Qatar.

“First of all, we didn’t start the day in the best possible way with the problem with Carlos, which was a shame,” reports Leclerc, who emphasises that he also left himself a little more “leeway” because of the defect with his team-mate, “just to be on the safe side. “

McLaren pace not “surprising”, Mercedes’ is

What he means: the fuel tank on Sainz’s car may have been damaged by the aggressive kerbs in Qatar. “To be honest, it’s hard to say now because we haven’t had time to get the tank out of the car yet,” says team boss Frederic Vasseur on the matter.

But it sounds like Leclerc preferred to shift down a gear in the race in order not to risk a defect in his own car as well. However, he also clarifies: “On the other hand, I don’t think we could have got more out of today’s race.”

Meaning: even if he hadn’t cut back, he probably wouldn’t have made it any further to the front. On the one hand, he was also “not really surprised” that McLaren had been “super quick” in Qatar, the Monegasque said.

“We expected them to be very strong on a track like this. On the other hand, we are surprised by the pace of Mercedes. For them to finish ahead of us with a crash on the first lap is surprising,” mused Leclerc.

Little flexibility in strategy due to regulations

At the finish, Russell was just under five seconds ahead of him. “I don’t remember exactly what kind of tyres George had and if he had a bit more flexibility. But we only had four laps of flexibility. So it’s not enough to create a tyre delta,” Leclerc explains.

To which he alludes: A set of tyres was allowed to complete a maximum of 18 laps in the race in Qatar. Leclerc had one new set of hard tyres and one set of medium tyres before the race, so he did 36 laps. On top of that, he had three sets of yellow compounds already in use.

But he was only allowed to use one of them for three laps, so it was not an option for the race. And he was allowed to use the other two for twelve and 13 laps respectively. That makes a total of 61 laps for a strategy with one hard and three medium.

It is true that they also had numerous soft tyres. But after the sprint it was clear to Ferrari that these were not an option for the race because they go down too quickly. “We had a potential of 61 laps for 57 race laps,” Vasseur therefore emphasised.

Consequently, there were hardly any options in the strategy to extend or shorten a stint. The situation was similar for other teams: The two McLaren drivers, for example, also had a potential of only 63 laps (without softs).

Why Leclerc is still calm after Qatar

Leclerc therefore also admits that overall pace was simply lacking. “Because if you look at McLaren, we finished very far behind,” he stresses. At the finish, the Monegasque was 33 seconds behind Lando Norris and even almost 35 seconds behind Oscar Piastri.

“We were just not there in terms of pace. Even when we were pushing. We were very far behind the McLarens,” he stresses. At the same time, however, he makes it clear that the Qatar weekend is now no reason to panic in Maranello.

“Even if the end of the weekend is disappointing, we must not jump to conclusions after just one bad weekend. The last four or five [races] have been very good for the team,” Leclerc reminded Sky.

He says he is sure they will be stronger again at other tracks, and Vasseur reveals, “At the first briefing of the weekend, I said right at my introduction that on paper it’s not the best track for us.”

“But I also said that I gave exactly the same speech before Singapore,” laughs the team boss. But while his prediction didn’t pan out in Singapore, and Ferrari even managed to win there, Qatar turned out to be the expected difficult race.

Ferrari hopes for better Austin weekend

That was to be feared because of the wind and the track characteristics, said Vasseur, who also clarified that it was “no drama” because they scored just eight points less than world championship rival Mercedes this weekend.

In the battle for second place in the Constructors’ World Championship, Ferrari’s gap to Mercedes is now 28 points, which means the Brackley-based team is still within striking distance. “We will have better weekends in the future,” Vasseur also announces.

Asked if Russell’s pace on Sunday surprised him, he replies, “I don’t know because I don’t look at the others. I focus on what we have to do. And we didn’t have a very consistent race.”

Leclerc, he says, had graining in the second stint, then got stuck in traffic and lost the connection to the front as a result. Asked if things would be better again in Austin, Vasseur replies with a laugh, “I’d rather not say!”

But at least he lets it slip that things should actually be “a bit better” there again.