Leclerc: 'I'm struggling like crazy with the car this weekend'

Charles Leclerc had obviously hoped to be on pole at his home race in Monaco, but the Monegasque did not get beyond spot three in qualifying. Afterwards, during the press conference, the Monegasque commented that a pole would not have been realistic.

Leclerc was disappointed with spot three. "But at the same time, I think I have to look at the weekend as a whole. I struggled like crazy with the car. We had a lot of problems, with the low point being the hill to Turn 3 and also Turn 13. In qualifying it was the same, but with the new tyres you can get a bit more out of it and I managed to put everything I wanted in one lap. It wasn't enough for pole, but anyway, I think this was the maximum we could do today."

Catching up with Alonso

So Leclerc does not think pole would have been possible. "Because even looking back at the lap in Q3, the lap was honestly really good. I don't think there was much more." So if the Ferrari man wants to go higher on Sunday, he will have to overtake two men. "Well, as Fernando said, it's not a circuit where you can overtake. Even if we could overtake, I think we are a bit behind in terms of race pace. But let's see. I haven't seen the weather forecast lately. The last time I checked, there was some rain around. So if this is the case, a bit of luck will also come into play. Hopefully, we can make the right choices and make up positions."

But doing a rain dance? "No, no, no. I'm not that desperate. If it's dry, Monaco is nice too. In recent years, rain didn't really play in my favour. So if it can be a dry race and we can stay on the podium, that would already be a good weekend considering the difficulties we've had."