'Didn't execute that well' – Hamilton and Leclerc critical of Ferrari's strategy in Italian Grand Prix Qualifying

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton admit that Ferrari failed to execute a good enough strategy during Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, with the pair only achieving P4 and P5 respectively.

With the slipstream at Monza proving pivotal, teams and drivers tried to work in unison to give themselves a shot at pole position ahead of Sunday's 53-lap race.

But the Scuderia failed to deliver in front of their home fans, as both Leclerc and Hamilton found themselves two tenths adrift of surprise polesitter, Pierre Gasly.

The pair had been fortunate to even reach the final stage of Qualifying, as both were left on the cusp of Q2 elimination, with Hamilton only squeezing through by 0.001s over Gabriel Bortoleto's Audi.

"A very tough session, just in terms of getting consistency and ultimately we didn't do it, I think. Didn't execute that well," said Hamilton.

"My first lap felt really good in Q1 and I stopped to save the tyre, and then went into Q2 and I was meant to do a push-cool-cool-push.

"But because Charles didn't want to go out, they just delayed, delayed, so I only got one push and yeah, that was basically the whole session."

Leclerc admitted that the session had been messy in general, as well as having a technical issue which put himself and the team on the back foot.

"We've had way too many problems. Unfortunately, Q2 we had a big problem with the battery which then we understood, we kind of fixed for Q3, but just a messy session," he said.

"When you want to go and get the last hundredths, we need to be perfect as a team and we haven't been, so we need look at what's going on."

Leclerc was keen to stress that the result might have been different had Ferrari executed better, something he believed Gasly and Alpine achieved with a shock result.

"I spoke to Pierre yesterday and he was asking me some things for Turns 6-7. I was like, okay, with Pierre I can share things – and today he beat all of us for pole," added Leclerc.

"I'm very happy for Pierre. I think it's a big, big surprise for everybody, but it shows that with these cars, especially on tracks like this, if you do everything perfect then it can make a massive difference.

"I don't think they've got the best car, but I think they have done the best job today and, on a track like this, it makes a much bigger difference to other tracks."

One solace that the Ferrari pair can take after their struggles in Qualifying, is after Oscar Piastri's three-place grid penalty for impeding Liam Lawson in the first turn, it'll be an all-red second row as Leclerc and Hamilton have been pushed up to third and fourth respectively.