Leclerc disappointed not to fight for pole in ‘frustrating’ Monza qualifying as he explains where Ferrari ‘paid the price’

Charles Leclerc could not hide his disappointment after missing out on the battle for pole position in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, with the Monegasque admitting that Ferrari’s prospects had seemed more positive following Friday’s practice sessions.

After a solid day of running on the opening day of action at Monza, Leclerc had voiced an optimistic note about the Scuderia’s performance on a weekend where the team have brought upgrades to their car.

However, Saturday did not seem to deliver the same feeling, with Leclerc and team mate Carlos Sainz both struggling with understeer during qualifying. And with increasingly fine margins at the front, neither driver quite had the pace to fight for pole, leaving Leclerc in fourth and Sainz in fifth.

When asked after the session if not being in the battle for P1 was disappointing, Leclerc answered: “Yeah, disappointed. Yesterday it seemed like it was a positive day, today quite a bit less. P4 was the best we could do, but [it’s] frustrating.

Charles Leclerc 'disappointed' after not making step forward to reach pole in Monza

“I don’t like fighting for these kinds of positions. We are very close to first place, on the contrary of last weekend which is a good step forward. However, it’s not enough, so I really hope that tomorrow we can turn the situation around.”

While some of the issues experienced with the car on Saturday had been present earlier in the weekend, Leclerc suggested that Ferrari had lost out due to their rivals making more progress than them.

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“I mean, [in Turns] 1, 2, 4, 5 I’ve had so much understeer all weekend, so it’s not like it got worse,” the 26-year-old explained. “But it was just the same and I believe that the others maybe did a step forward that we didn’t do today, and that’s where we paid the price of being on pole or P4.”

On the other side of the garage, Sainz suffered a moment in Q1 which forced him to abort his first flying lap, the Spaniard having dipped a wheel in the gravel after losing the rear.

'One tenth off, one tenth off, one tenth off' - Carlos Sainz sums up the weekend so far after qualifying P5

Quizzed on whether he had been chasing throughout the session off the back of this, Sainz responded: “I think we looked like the whole session we were just one tenth off – one tenth off, one tenth off, one tenth off.

“Maybe in Q3 when the track temperature dropped a bit with the clouds coming, it went away from us and we started to pick up a lot of understeer, and I couldn’t turn the car in the last two sectors.

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“[It’s] a shame because I was quick in Sector 1 but I couldn’t quite make it work around Sector 2 and 3 with the understeer. I didn’t manage to put enough balance on the car to get around them. But, yeah, one tenth off – it is what it is.”

Pushed on whether he felt it was possible to be in the mix for a podium – particularly given how close the field is, with the leading six cars all covered by less than two tenths in qualifying – Sainz commented: “Yeah, I think tomorrow is a completely different day.

“Graining is going to be the order of the day, everyone’s been struggling a lot with deg[radation] since yesterday so I think it’s going to be a very different Monza."