Charles Leclerc thought Ferrari had got their simulation wrong when they told him how quick Alfa Romeo were following practice yesterday.
He realised they had been right after Zhou Guanyu out-qualified both Ferrari drivers today. Leclerc took sixth on the grid ahead of the other Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas, while Carlos Sainz Jnr failed to reach Q3 in the second Ferrari.“They were very strong,” Leclerc admitted after qualifying. “Yesterday, the team showed me the simulations of what we think they will be like and honestly they were all right, the simulation ahead of today.
“Yesterday, I was like ‘there might be something wrong in that, it might be a mistake’ and they proved me wrong today because the team expected it.”
“It’s very difficult to understand because of my knowledge, I haven’t checked, but I don’t think they had any particularly big upgrades for this weekend,” he said. “But then from one weekend to the other, everybody’s changing. So it’s very difficult to understand.”
Leclerc thought his lap would be more competitive until he was where it had left him on the grid. “It’s not a great [feeling] to be honest because my lap, I was really happy with my lap, and then you look at the board and you are P6. The margins are very close until P4, but then the top three is quite a lot ahead on a track like this.”
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He has cars from four different teams ahead of him on the grid, including the two McLaren drivers, who claimed the second row of the grid.
Ferrari arrived in Hungary expected the car would suit them better, but the car’s sensitivity to changes in track conditions hurt them again, said Leclerc.
“Honestly, I think it’s still quite fast, but it’s still too picky. Whenever we’ve got qualifying where we’ve got a bit more wind, today, Silverstone was obviously extreme, but here also there are some corners that are very affected by the wind and today we were suffering a lot in those.
“So it’s still the same problem. We did some step forward, but the others don’t have that pickiness, and whenever we are in those conditions we are struggling more than others.”
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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix
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Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2023, 21:50
Impressive performance indeed by alfa, they were strong all quali; a surprise compared to the rest of the season.
Jere (@jerejj)
23rd July 2023, 5:18
Neither did I really.