lose out to Andrea Kimi Antonelli.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how Kimi\u2019s lap was,\u201d he said when asked by Crash.net about the smaller gap.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cI know George also had problems. So maybe they didn\u2019t optimise everything on a qualifying like this. But I also think that it\u2019s a lot down to understanding these new cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leclerc conceded that he\u2019s had to change his approach: \u201cThey are very strange in qualifying, because I felt like in the past one of my strengths coming into Q3, I was just taking massive risks to get something\u00a0out more.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo consistency pays off more, and today I felt like I just\u00a0found\u00a0my rhythm from Q1 to Q3, which is a bit less exciting for Q3 when you are in the car, because you can\u2019t push like you want.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day it paid off because I\u2019m closer to the guys in front. But it was not a crazy lap, unfortunately,\u00a0but you cannot really achieve that anymore, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Although Leclerc was pipped to third place by team-mate Lewis Hamilton, he was adamant that he could not have done a better lap because he is “struggling so much on this track”.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very rare for me to be happy when I\u2019m P4,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just struggling so much on this track. I don\u2019t know why. I\u2019ve tried everything. I\u2019ve tried different set-ups, I\u2019ve tried different driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo at the end of the day, I\u2019m happy with my lap. Yes, P4 is not great, but I don\u2019t think there was much in it either. I\u2019m the most satisfied I can be with a P4 as I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/xpb_1401562_hires.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
George Russell, Charles Leclerc, 2026 Chinese GP<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0XPB Images<\/p>\n
Leclerc confident of another strong Mercedes fight in Chinese GP<\/p>\n
In Saturday morning\u2019s sprint, Ferrari again took the fight to Mercedes in the early laps, Leclerc is hopeful that he and Hamilton can again do that in Sunday\u2019s main event.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, they are very strong for sure. They have this pace advantage at the moment, which is about three, four-tenths in the high fuel.<\/p>\n
“But I think that whenever, especially at the start of the race, we seem to be a bit more flexible with where we want to deploy and they seem to struggle a little bit. And also when you start a fight, you lose so much with battery, it\u2019s kind of a snowball effect.<\/p>\n
“And we manage to slow them down and stay in the fight. Hopefully that is the case\u00a0tomorrow, because it makes the race more exciting outside of the cockpit, but also inside the cockpit it\u2019s quite nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc says consistency is now the secret to a good performance in Formula 1 qualifying, as “crazy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,826,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-541192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-ferrari","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541192","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=541192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}