Charles Leclerc hopes to put more pressure on the McLaren drivers than this season, where he was second-place qualifying for the upgraded Ferrari at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Randorris took over 30 seconds of pole position from Leclair, who beat Oscar Piastri to second place, as the Australian couldn’t complete his final run due to the yellow flag. Lewis Hamilton qualifies fourth most, as Ferrari’s new floor helped deliver the most powerful qualifying performance ever, and expects Leclair to be even more competitive in race trim.
“It’s fine. It’s been a long time,” Leclerc said. “Overall this year, we’re pretty weak in qualifying and I think we’re pretty strong in the race, but it’s good to at least (start) from the front row. At least there’s a bit of a path to making before we fight the people in front. We’re there.
“But obviously, the gap is pretty big on Rand’s knee. This must have been very special indeed. I don’t know if we have the tools to fight for tomorrow’s victory. As I said, we are usually very strong on Sundays compared to the pace of the qualifying round.
“I’ll do everything to put more pressure on these two guys than usual. We have Oscars behind us with a little luck today, but tomorrow we look forward to what is possible and look forward to it.”
Leclerc says that while the latest information from Ferrari was helpful in the qualifying round, it will need to be evaluated on other types of circuits to fully understand progress.
“If you take out the land, the gap is very tight around here, so it’s enough to be P2,” he said. “So it definitely helped us.
“I felt like there were a few steps. How much does it cost? You need to see it in the different characteristics of the track. With this track, you have to judge that.
Hamilton was equally encouraged by the feelings he had gained from Ferrari after one of the most competitive qualifying performances ever.
“We definitely made some progress overnight,” Hamilton said. “I was much happier in the direction we went with the P3 car. It was really positive. I think it’s bordered by Charles in terms of performance. Charles is really, really used to the car.
“We had more time on the lap. We were close to 0.3 in turn 6, and we had a massive snap. Then we came across a 0.06S line.
“They were definitely able to extract more from the floor this weekend. It was a really small step. First off, there’s a deterioration in the floor because they have a new (floor), so the new floor is a little better.