Leclerc Admits Ferrari Had Underestimated McLaren And Red Bull At Imola

JAKARTA - Racer Charles Leclerc admits that his team, Ferrari, may have underestimated the hidden potential of his closest rivals, McLaren and Red Bull, at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix qualifying session at the Enzo e Dino Ferrari Imola Autodromo Circuit, Italy.

This also made Leclerc, who dominated three free practice sessions, had to settle for finishing fourth, right behind polesitter Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris (McLaren).

The result was before Leclerc finally moved up one place to third after Piastri was awarded a three-grid penalty which forced him to start the race from fifth.

"I'm a little disappointed. Only in this qualifying session, there's not much more to take advantage of from the car. FP1 and FP2 are going very well. However, we never knew the potential of other teams, and I think they were hiding their game more than we thought," I'm Leclerc, quoted from AFP, Sunday.

"It ended in the absence of enough performance in the car to get better today. This is very unfortunate, but this is the best we can do," he added.

Regarding his confidence in the main race of GP Emilia-Romagna later, the Monaco racer said he was still aiming for the winning target in Imola.

"The target is still to win. The car is good in terms of speed, but, this is one of the most difficult tracks to beat," Leclerc said.

"Meski demikian, kami masih memiliki strategi dan kecepatan yang diperlukan. Jadi, target saya adalah tetap untuk meraih kemenangan. Jika kami gagal mencapaikan, ya, itu hidup, tapi setidaknya kami akan mencoba," imbuhnya.

On the other hand, his team-mate, Carlos Sainz, assesses McLaren's speed is superior at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

"I think if we look at the details, the whole weekend McLaren looks a little stronger than us at a one-round pace on the soft tires. They only didn't record a single round, but we knew ahead of their qualification it would be difficult to beat," said Sainz.

"I have difficulty with soft tires, which is something I need to pay attention to personally. In addition, everything is fine, more or less as we expected. In the main race, we targeted the podium," he added.

Meanwhile, the main race of GP Emilia-Romagna will take place on Sunday (19/5) at 20.00 WIB.