Charles Leclerc finished qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix in fifth position, and the Ferrari driver is somewhat frustrated at not having managed to do better, despite knowing that the SF624 is better in the race. He hopes to get rid of at least one McLaren F1 driver at the start of tomorrow's race.
“Honestly the lap was very good, the two laps were really good I'm not leaving much behind. It's the most we can do with the car, we have a little trouble in qualifying, we are better in the race but on a track like that it's difficult to come back” Leclerc said.
“We are not giving up, there is still the constructor's championship at stake and we are going to do everything to make life difficult for McLaren, and we will have to count on the start to pass one of the two.”
The Monegasque is still convinced of being able to pass the McLarens in the race and maintain his hope of a world title: “The performance is there to beat them because in the race I think we are a little faster than them.”
“That was the case during the Sprint but unfortunately I was stuck behind Lewis. I had some performance towards the end but it was very difficult to overtake. We're going to do everything and if I pass one in the first lap Afterwards it will be easier to overtake the second.”
Carlos Sainz doesn't think he and Leclerc could have gone any faster: “Honestly, even though we made some changes to the car, to the tires and the preparation, we reached a limit with the laps we could do with a Ferrari.
“A 1'20″8 for Charles, I did 1'21″0, I missed the slipstream on my last lap and that could have given me a tenth or two. But in general it shows that the predictions that we had made are confirmed.”
“We're going to give it our all, it's going to be a long race, our race pace isn't bad but it's difficult to overtake, so we're going to see how we can run the best race possible.”
