Leclerc left frustrated by Ferrari’s deficit to rivals

Charles Leclerc cut a downbeat figure after Saturday’s qualifying session for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Monegasque racer and Ferrari left to ponder a gap of almost a second to pole position.

Leclerc headed into the weekend playing down Ferrari’s chances, admitting the Scuderia still faced “quite a bit of work” to recover from a challenging mid-season phase and get their campaign back on track.

However, qualifying at Zandvoort proved to be another challenging affair for the team, given that Carlos Sainz dropped out in Q2 and Leclerc could only place sixth – 0.909s away from pole-sitter Lando Norris.

Initially stating that it was “the best we could do”, Leclerc continued: “It’s disappointing, because as much as we expected this result, we also did not expect to be nine-tenths off pole position. It’s a lot, especially on such a short track like this, it’s really a lot.

Qualifying Highlights: 2024 Dutch Grand Prix

“Unfortunately, I keep repeating myself since quite a few months, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re aware as a team that we have a lot of work to do, we’re working flat out to try and close that gap [to the front of the field].

“We’ll have upgrades soon on the car, which I hope will help us close that gap, but when I see the gap on a track like this, I’m not sure it will be enough to at least be in the fight for the win. Small steps after small steps, I hope it can bring us back to winning consistently, but again, there’s a lot of work.”

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Asked if he has hope for race day, Leclerc added: “We did our homework during the night [after Friday practice] and I think we improved the car a little bit.

“However, the race pace here doesn’t really matter. It’s very, very difficult to overtake, so I expect us to finish in a similar position tomorrow. Time will tell, and if there’s the opportunity to do something much better then I’ll try and take that opportunity.”

Leclerc: Ferrari 'working flat out to close the gap' to leaders

Sainz will start Sunday’s race back in 11th position after a particularly disrupted weekend that involved him missing most of the dry FP2 session due to a gearbox issue.

“A very poor weekend up until now, given that we haven’t been able to run pretty much in the dry, and not even in the wet, really,” he said. “Going into qualifying not doing the run that everyone did in FP2, the whole session obviously I was on the back foot and paid the price.

“If on top of that you add that we don’t look very performant this weekend, plus also I had a bit of traffic in the lap, then all these things start adding up and you’re P11.”

He continued: “I’m confident we can come back a bit [in the race]. Obviously we’re the fourth-fastest car this weekend, so it’s not like we can do a lot more. From P11, Charles is P6, hopefully I can get myself into the top-eight – that would get us some points, and we move from there.”