Leclerc had potential to ‘do more’ in China qualifying

Ferrari Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc was left disappointed to only qualify fourth for the Chinese Grand Prix after making a mistake on his final run in Q3.

Leclerc ended up just 0.017s shy of teammate Sebastian Vettel as Ferrari had to settle with the second row of the grid in Shanghai, with the Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton proving untouchable as they finished nearly three-tenths up the road.

The 21-year-old rued a mistake on his final flying effort in the last segment of qualifying and felt he could have outqualified his four-time world champion teammate without it.

“I’m not happy with myself,” Leclerc admitted. “I did a mistake in the last lap and I shouldn’t have done that.

“Overall, I think there are positives, also on my side, because FP1, FP2, FP3 I was quite lost, struggling a little bit, actually quite a lot.

“Our chance for qualifying was better, I drove better and the lap time came. It’s good but it’s also disappointing because I think I had the potential to do more today.”

Leclerc missed a large chunk of track time in both FP2 and FP3 as Ferrari carried out checks on his SF90. As a result, he was unable to complete any long runs and has been left in the dark about his chances heading into Sunday’s race.

“We’ll see tomorrow,” he added when asked about Ferrari’s race-day prospects.

“I didn’t have the race runs obviously so it’s going to be tricky on my side but I’ll push to get the best result tomorrow.”