Charles Leclerc was delighted with his qualifying performance at Silverstone after putting his Ferrari fourth on the grid.
He achieved Ferrari’s best starting position of the season to date and also progressed through Q2 on a set of medium compound tyres. That may put him in a stronger position tactically for the race.“I’m extremely happy about today,” said Leclerc after qualifying. “I did not expect to be fourth for tomorrow’s race and especially not starting with mediums.”
Leclerc admitted the team doubted they would be able to get through Q2 on the medium rubber.
“We tried it but we were not very confident about making it. To make it work was very nice.
“It’s looking [better] for the race tomorrow because our race pace we are struggling. I think we have the pace, we are just destroying the tyres very quickly compared to the others, so starting on the medium will help us massively.”
However his team mate Sebastian Vettel, who qualified 10th, will not have the same strategic advantage as his team mate.
“For sure starting on the soft tyre is not ideal,” said Vettel. “But it is what it is so we have to try and make the most of it.”
“I struggled to find the rhythm,” he admitted. “The car was not too bad but it didn’t fit me today so [I was] struggling. Yesterday obviously I did very little laps and this morning as I said [I couldn’t] get into the rhythm.
“Nevertheless I will try everything I can tomorrow and we’ll see what we can get.”
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2020 F1 season
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Jeorge
1st August 2020, 17:39
Great job by Charles for P4
The problems with the car all weekend didn’t allow Seb to get into rhythm
Medium tyres to start tomorrow’s race should help
Hopefully Seb improves from P10
Not a bad weekend in consideration
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
1st August 2020, 17:43
Ferrari were on average about a second a lap slower than McLaren on the long runs on Friday. Really the only thing they can hope for is cooler conditions which’ll hopefully keep them from destroying their tyres 2-3 laps into a stint. Going to be along afternoon, especially for Seb. Soft tyres, starting P10, expect to see him get swallowed whole by Hulk and Albon early in the race. If he can finish ahead of one AlphaTauri it’ll be quite a feat. Leclerc should probably try to finish ahead of one McLaren and hopefully both Renaults at best, though I’m guessing he’ll be vulnerable to Stroll, Albon and maybe Hulkenberg too, later on.
Tor
1st August 2020, 21:31
@wsrgo just underlines the strong qualifying effort by Leclerc on the mediums.
knightameer (@knightameer)
1st August 2020, 18:47
Let’s hope race pace is good enough to hold 4th place in the race. Seb finishing P6-7 will be good enough starting from P10.