{"id":107087,"date":"2025-08-30T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107087\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T17:00:00","slug":"ive-been-very-poor-charles-leclercs-damning-assessment-of-his-qualifying-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107087\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI’ve been very poor\u201d – Charles Leclerc’s damning assessment of his qualifying performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc<\/a> has offered a damning assessment of his qualifying performance at the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Ferrari<\/a> Formula 1 driver down in sixth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leclerc has been off the pace all weekend with the Monegasque not yet finishing a session above sixth, continuing Ferrari\u2019s difficult 2025 season thus far with it far behind leader\u00a0McLaren<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Monegasque revealed Ferrari made \u201ca lot\u201d of changes on the car overnight, but there was little improvement with Leclerc two places behind what he thought was possible in qualifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very disappointed with myself, to be honest,\u201d Leclerc, who was 0.678s off polesitter Oscar Piastri<\/a>, told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven’t done the job today and I’ve been very poor. The whole weekend has been a little bit on the backfoot on my side. I’ve been trying to change and to chase something that maybe wasn’t in the car this weekend for one reason or another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were losing a lot of lap time in two, three corners. I guess that kind of stayed the same during qualifying. Not to an extreme extent as much as in free practice but still we were losing.<\/p>\n

\"Charles <\/p>\n

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari<\/p>\n

Photo by: Joe Portlock \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBy trying to find something that wasn’t in the car, I think the consistency of the weekend had been hurt a little bit, and I just didn’t do a good job, especially in qualifying\u00a0\u2013 I’m really not happy with my Q3 lap.\u201d<\/p>\n

This result comes after Leclerc qualified on pole last time out in Budapest, but his SF-25 felt \u201ca lot\u201d different from the Hungarian Grand Prix\u00a0\u2013 where he eventually finished fourth.<\/p>\n

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton<\/a> was more upbeat though, despite being outqualified by Leclerc as the seven-time world champion will start in seventh for Sunday\u2019s grand prix.<\/p>\n

But it was Hamilton\u2019s first Q3 appearance since July\u2019s British Grand Prix, after a Q1 exit in Belgium and Q2 in Hungary, leaving him buoyed by the progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s definitely encouraging, at least on my side of the garage, to have a better result,\u201d said Hamilton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys in the garage deserve it and the team deserve it, so I’m happy I could be there or thereabouts.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis <\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andrea Diodato \/ NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBut of course, we’re not where we want to be. To be seven tenths off, six-and-a-half tenths off in qualifying on a track like this, that’s a huge amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got to try and understand what that is, because Charles was P1 in the last race. But naturally, we do still have that deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked where he thought Ferrari\u2019s biggest deficit to McLaren was, Hamilton replied: \u201cThe biggest limit for us, I think, is a combination of things. But ultimately, we need more load to go through the corners as fast as McLaren here, for some reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, is that load or is that coming from the tyres? It’s difficult to know. Maybe they get into the tyres in a different operating window to us, potentially. Or it’s a combination of both. Ultimately, I think McLaren definitely have more downforce than everybody. But they’re not very draggy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to try and match them, we’d have to go up a couple of levels of wing, but have the efficiency of a lower wing and then it’s just a combination of getting the car to be more stable through a corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the wind makes it really tricky. So you’ve got tailwinds into one and crosswinds in lots of different places. I think this car is to be quite sensitive to wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from Dutch GP – Practice & Qualifying<\/p>\n

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\"Oscar<\/p>\n


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Read Also:<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc has offered a damning assessment of his qualifying performance at the Dutch Grand Prix, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,13275,60689,817,73690,826,813,816,823,85,76821],"class_list":["post-107087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-dutch-gp","tag-f1","tag-f1-dutch-grand-prix-2025","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sports","tag-u201cive-been-very-pooru201d-charles-leclercs-damning-assessment-of-his-qualifying-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}