Fernando Alonso<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
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Even up until Q3 in qualifying, Leclerc didn\u2019t look like he had the pace to challenge for a top-three position.<\/p>\n
![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/xpb_1384833_hires.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc<\/p>\n
Racing driver Jamie Chadwick believes Hamilton must be \u201cconfused\u201d by Ferrari\u2019s inconsistent pace, highlighted by Leclerc\u2019s last-ditch effort to secure third.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was weird was that both Ferraris looked like they were struggling massively,\u201d Chadwick explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth looked like they were knocked out in Q2 at one point and next thing you know Charles pops it into P3. Lewis himself must be confused by it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Fellow Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok cited Leclerc\u2019s brilliance – and in his opinion, being the best qualifier in F1 – as the main reason for Hamilton looking like he\u2019s struggling since joining Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Chandhok also thinks Hamilton has had enough time to get up to speed at Ferrari.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other car is third on the grid. That\u2019s the point,\u201d Chandhok added.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, there\u2019s lots of people who questioned it three years ago. I still think Leclerc is the best qualifier in F1. He drags these laps out of it and Martin said it in commentary. Somehow, he extracts that performance over one lap. They looked nowhere in the sprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomehow when it mattered in main qualifying, Leclerc extracted the maximum from it, that lap and Lewis wasn\u2019t able to. Now, is that familiarity with the Ferrari and the way that the car evolves through qualifying with track evolution and another set of tyres? Maybe.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re now at weekend number 21 for Lewis with that car. It\u2019s not new to him. Ultimately, that\u2019s the question he will be asking himself – how is it Charles made the step when I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has written off his chances at this weekend\u2019s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, declaring \u201cthat\u2019s the weekend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,817,826,823,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-272083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272083","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=272083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}