Leclerc: It’s my own fault for what happened in the final

Carlos Sainz believes the fourth result in qualifying is the maximum the car could achieve, and Charles Leclerc admitted it was his own fault for exaggerating slightly during the decisive attempt.

Carlos Sainz (4th): “To say that I am satisfied with the 4th result would be an exaggeration. But overall I’m satisfied; we could hardly have achieved more. I lost about half a second to Max Verstappen, just over a hundredth to George Russell, and this suggests that we are now in a battle with Mercedes.

But we continue to modernize the car intensively, it has become a bit faster and this has brought us closer to Mercedes. But it has become a bit more difficult to drive, and today we struggled. But we will see tomorrow what we can achieve.

My partner and I were faced with the problem of vertical sway, but when we tried to figure it out, we acted differently. It was never possible to get rid of this completely, and it manifests itself in unpredictable ways: in some circles there is build-up, in others not. But I know that there is a lot of work going on at the base in Maranello, and the team hopes to find a solution through Silverstone.

However, we did not only lose half a second to Max in the fastest parts of the lap. Our car is less efficient, both at low speeds and under braking, and we have to analyse all of this and try to improve it in all areas.”

Charles Leclerc (6th): “I think I overdid it unfortunately on my last attempt. Although I got through turns 1 and 3 really well, I think my time was a few tenths better than the previous lap.

I was really confident in the car and because I was able to brake a bit late in Turns 1 and 3, but when I tried to do it again in Turn 4, the front wheels immediately locked and I just went straight.

This caused me to lose two-tenths of what I played, and a total of three-tenths were lost in that episode. But I decided to continue attacking and see what would come of it, even though it was already too much: I lost control of the car and flew off the track. But in fact the lap was already ruined in the 4th corner, because after locking the wheels it is already difficult to restore the grip of the tires on the track.

But I am responsible for what happened in the last session. Although the first attempt was good, because I was on rolled-in tyres, I did not perform optimally in the second attempt. I am happy that the balance of the car was already better than yesterday. But the weekend as a whole is not going well…”