‘The McLarens are so fast’ – Leclerc shocked by rivals’ pace after taking P3 in Sao Paulo Sprint Qualifying

Charles Leclerc says he and Ferrari can be happy with maximising their potential during Sprint Qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, but remains wary of McLaren’s level of performance.

McLaren locked out the front row of the grid for Saturday’s Sprint at Interlagos, with Oscar Piastri beating Lando Norris to top spot in Sprint Qualifying 3, after Norris had led the way during Free Practice 1, SQ1 and SQ2.

READ MORE: Piastri beats Norris to stunning Sprint Qualifying pole in Sao Paulo by 0.029s

Leclerc wound up as best of the rest, two tenths of a second behind Piastri, and ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

“I’m happy because we have maximised the result for today, I don’t think anything was there to do better today,” Leclerc said.

“The McLarens are so fast so we are a little bit on the backfoot this weekend and it will be important to take strong points anyway,” added Leclerc.

Pressed on whether he felt McLaren were out of reach for the remainder of the Sao Paulo weekend, Leclerc replied: “I don’t like saying it like this so early on in the weekend, so we’ll give it everything to put the challenge on them.

“But seeing the pace they’ve shown today, I think they were particularly strong.”

READ MORE: Verstappen set for Sao Paulo GP grid penalty after power unit change

Carlos Sainz qualified in fifth place but was optimistic that Ferrari could make improvements as they strive to reduce McLaren’s 29-point lead in the constructors’ championship.

“It was super tricky with the track temperature dropping,” Mexico City Grand Prix winner Sainz said. “The tyres were really difficult to get in the window. We had a good improvement in SQ2 with the mediums; we only did one lap on those tyres, which will serve us well for the rest of the weekend, then on the soft there’s a bit of lap time to find.

READ MORE: Ferrari’s strong form ‘doesn’t mean we will win all races from now on’ insists Leclerc as constructors’ battle heats up

“But I remember in Austin [at the last Sprint], we were weak on softs on Friday, and then for qualifying we managed to find some extra [time], so yeah that is the plan – to try and find tomorrow for qualifying something more in the soft.”