Charles Leclerc says something felt “completely off” with his Ferrari during Saturday’s qualifying session for the 2022 Hungarian GP after finishing with the third fastest time.
George Russell shocked the grid by taking his maiden pole, finishing 0.044s faster than Carlos Sainz. Ferrari topped both practice sessions on Friday, with the Scuderia’s long run pace making them the favourite for Sunday’s race, though cooler conditions could change that.
Nevertheless, Leclerc is confident the F1-75 has the pace needed for a strong result despite Saturday’s disappointing result.
“I think it’s good,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1 regarding his race pace. “We need to focus on ourselves, do a good start tomorrow and then I believe the performance will be good.
“Today on my side in Q3 for some reason there was something very weird with the tyres and we need to analyse that because it was just feeling completely off compared to before.
“So, we’ll try and look at it and understand what went wrong, but for the race pace, I’m confident.”
Leclerc congratulates Russell
Despite missing out on a 17th career pole, Leclerc took time to congratulate Russell on the first of his career.
“It’s not too bad,” Leclerc said. “But on the other hand, we had to get that pole. But a huge congratulations to George. It’s been a great lap from him.
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I imagine it was an amazing lap from him, and it’s a special day for him too. And we’ll try to overtake him tomorrow.”
