Leclerc and F1 2026's oddities: The "crazy laps" are gone

Fourth on the grid won't have been what Charles Leclerc was aiming for going into qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, but he was surprisingly upbeat all things considered. 

The Monegasque had a slight smile on his face at the end of Saturday's session having improved upon his grid position for the sprint earlier in the day, just 0.013 seconds behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who finished third.

"It's very rare for me to say to be happy when I'm P4 but honestly this track is, by far, I'm just struggling so much on this track I don't know why, I've tried everything, I've tried different setups, I've tried different driving," he told media including Autosport.

"So at the end of the day I'm happy with my lap. Yes, P4 is not great but I don't think there was much in it either. Yeah, I'm the most satisfied I can be with a P4 let's say."

Referencing the narrowing gap to Mercedes as qualifying sessions have progressed since Melbourne, Leclerc conceded: "I don't know how Kimi's [Antonelli, who is on pole for Mercedes] lap was, I know also that George [Russell] had problems so maybe they didn't optimise everything on a qualifying like this."

Consistency rather than perfection

Charles Leclerc must get used to no longer going all-out on his Q3 laps.

Photo by: James Sutton / Formula 1 / Formula Motorsport Ltd via Getty Images

Above all for Leclerc, one thing is clear: much of a car's performance lies in the driver’s adaptation to their new machinery. The demands of power management makes an all-out-attack approach far too inefficient compared to more evenly and consistently delivered effort across a lap.

"It's a lot down to understanding these new cars," he added.

"They are very strange in qualifying because I feel like in the past, one of my strengths was that coming Q3 I was just taking massive risks to get something out more and now when you do that, which I did yesterday, you start confusing the engine side of things and you start losing a lot more than what you gain.

"So consistency pays off more and today, I felt like I just found my rhythm from Q1 to Q3 which is a little bit less exciting inside the car for Q3 because you cannot push as much as you want but at the end of the day it paid off because I'm just closer to the guys in front but it's not a crazy lap unfortunately but you cannot really achieve that anymore I feel."

Hamilton "simply drove better"

George Russell (Mercedes) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).

Photo by: Marcel van Dorst / EYE4images / NurPhoto via Getty Images

With Hamilton third on the grid, Leclerc was forced to settle with being slower than his seven-time world champion team-mate for the second day in a row, even if Friday's deficit could be put down to energy deployment issues.

Reviewing his run, Leclerc said: "It was a bit snappy, maybe I overdid it a little bit in the last Q3 run, but honestly, I'm not too unhappy with the lap.

"I think Lewis was just faster and have been more at ease since the beginning of the weekend, so honestly, being one-hundredth behind Lewis on a track like this... I'm kind of satisfied with it.

"Even though it hurts to say that because you always want to be the fastest car, he just did a better job and deserves that and tomorrow in the race, I feel a little bit better and I also think my setup seems to be pretty good for the race."