While Lewis Hamilton secures the sprint pole at Silverstone, Charles Leclerc currently stands no chance against his teammate and needs to work hard on everything
While Lewis Hamilton left the Ferrari garage with a big smile on his face after winning the sprint pole, there was less to celebrate on the other side of the pit. Charles Leclerc finished more than three-tenths of a second behind his teammate in the decisive segment of Sprint qualifying and had to settle for fourth on the grid.
Although Leclerc has often shone in qualifying in recent years—including last season, especially compared to his teammate—the Monegasque driver believes the current problems are part of a larger trend. Leclerc is still searching for the right feel for the SF-26 and has yet to find clear answers.
After the Monaco Grand Prix, he switched from Brembo to Carbon Industrie brake rotors. Although this has slightly improved his feel for the brakes, it has by no means solved the underlying problems.
When asked what exactly he’s lacking compared to Hamilton, the eight-time Grand Prix winner replied: “I’m looking into that very closely right now. Of course, it’s been a while since I realized that I no longer have the same ease I had with last year’s car. Even when I push and get everything just right, we’re talking about hundredths of a second here.”
According to Leclerc, this means he still has work ahead of him—especially to regain the confidence needed to squeeze the last few percentage points out of the Ferrari when it really counts.
“Lewis manages to run at 100 percent of the car’s potential more often, which I can’t do. So I really have to work on everything,” said the Ferrari driver.
However, the picture isn’t entirely clear-cut. Leclerc explained that he felt comfortable in Austria leading up to qualifying, before race pace became the main issue on Sunday. In Spielberg, he started ahead of Hamilton, but at Silverstone, he admitted he struggled significantly more over a single lap than he had in Austria.
“I think the most important thing is simply my feel for this car. If you don’t quite get that feel, it’s difficult to set the lap time and have the confidence to push the car to its limit every Saturday in qualifying. And that’s exactly what I’m struggling with,” he admits.
“[It’s about] being consistent, being at 100 percent. In SQ1 and SQ2, I was close, and I was also pretty confident going into SQ3, but then I lost the car. I just don’t feel the car as well as I should.”
The situation is all the more frustrating for Leclerc because Ferrari’s 2026 car clearly has potential. That became evident once again on Friday at Silverstone—much to the surprise of many Scuderia staff members. Frederic Vasseur’s team had actually expected to run into problems on the extremely power-dependent track, but the exact opposite was true.
“We’re extremely surprised that Lewis took pole today, but in general, we had expected to be much further behind the cars in front of us,” Leclerc continued. “It’s a good step forward, but yes, as a team, we’re just very, very surprised to be so competitive on a track like this.”