Sainz was in Leclerc's way: 'That wasn't ideal'

Charles Leclerc starts from P7 in Australia. The Ferrari driver expected more from his qualifying. It backfired on him. Not only did he not get the most out of the car, miscommunication with teammate Carlos Sainz also caused delays.

In front of Viaplay's camera, Leclerc explained that he had a small discussion with his teammate after the session about miscommunication during the final stage of Q3. Leclerc's disappointing result seems to be partly to do with this miscommunication. Leclerc: "I started pushing, while he was still warming up his tyres, in Q3. That was not ideal for me."

The teammates will discuss this later. And while Leclerc initially says it is not a big issue, he does reiterate that the minor incident was not entirely ideal. Listening to Leclerc's explanation, Sainz must have got in his way when turning on his fast lap.

Sainz himself was also bothered by traffic, so he thinks he did not get the most out of it. Leclerc says: "I was already struggling in Q1 and in Q2. I already knew I should have more performance in Q3. I didn't get everything out of it. So I won't point fingers, but this wasn't ideal."

By now Leclerc will have spoken to the team and in Ferrari' s press statement the driver phrases it more cautiously: "I was confident that I could put it all together on our last lap in Q3, but things did not go as planned as I didn’t do the prep lap and we lost time"