Charles Leclerc insists P5 was ‘maximum’ in Qatar qualifying as Carlos Sainz hits ‘hard limit’ with pace

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari achieved the maximum with fifth during qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix, as the team continued to struggle to extract one-lap pace from the SF-24.

Having been fourth and fifth respectively in Sprint Qualifying, Ferrari again trailed behind its opponents during qualifying for the Grand Prix on Saturday evening at the Lusail International Circuit – Leclerc finished in fifth position, three-tenths of a second behind Max Verstappen’s pole position time, while Carlos Sainz classified in seventh place.

However, the Scuderia's main constructors' rivals McLaren had their duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualify ahead of them in third and fourth, another hit to their title hopes after the earlier Sprint result.

“Both of my laps were really, really good, and there wasn’t much more between them in any of the corners, I was just doing the same lap time, that was the maximum the car could do today,” Leclerc said.

Leclerc: P5 ‘the maximum the car could do today’

“P5 is not great, but at the same time we’ve got the McLaren right in front, so it could have been worse, but, yeah we’ll need a good start, and good first few laps in order to try and pass one of them and then put the pressure on the other.”

Sainz was left to rue a difficult qualifying session after making changes to the SF-24 after the Sprint race that failed to yield the desired performance gains.

HIGHLIGHTS: Watch the qualifying action from Qatar as Verstappen sensationally beats Russell and Norris to pole

“Honestly even though we did quite a few changes to the car, to the tyres, to the preparation and everything, we just seemed to hit a bit of a hard limit today with the lap time we could achieve with the Ferrari,” Sainz said.

“[The] 20.8 of Charles, I did a 21.0, I missed a bit of a tow in my last lap which could have given me a tenth or two, but in general it just shows that what our predictions were coming into this track are kind of confirming themselves.”

Ferrari ‘hit a bit of a hard limit with lap time’ despite car tweaks – Sainz

Ferrari trail McLaren by 30 points in the constructors’ championship and must avoid being out-scored by their rival by 14 or more points in order to keep the fight alive at next weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“We’re going to give it our best shot – tomorrow is a very long race, and our race pace didn’t seem too bad,” Sainz said.

AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix

“But at the same time we know it’s tricky to overtake here so we need to find a way to execute the best possible race.”