Charles Leclerc breaks silence on his best qualifying with Ferrari in the 2025 F1 season

Charles Leclerc stated that he was as surprised as everyone to find himself in P3, before a penalty for George Russell saw him move up one spot further. The Ferrari driver has not had the smoothest weekend in Bahrain. He missed FP1 as the team gave academy driver Dino Beganovic an opportunity. Then after FP2, the driver did not think that the car was in the perfect window.

He did not think that the upgrades as well had a major impact on how the car was behaving. The qualifying session and the somewhat cooler temperatures saw the track come more and more towards Ferrari. It all just came down to the last lap, where Leclerc, quite brilliantly, nailed all the sectors and was just around a couple of tenths behind Oscar Piastri's pole position lap.

For Leclerc, this was his best qualifying position for the season, and it was made even more significant by the fact that teammate Lewis Hamilton was nowhere close to what he achieved.

"Honestly, I didn't expect P3. I knew that in Q3 there was some lap time. I knew that in Q1 and Q2 I just had to be patient and wait for the track to come to us.It was a bit tricky because at the beginning of Q3 everything felt really bad with the old tyres but then as soon as we put on the new tyres it was quite a bit better," Charles Leclerc said while summing up his qualifying result.

He added:

"I'm happy. I did not expect it but I think it's a result of... we explored quite a lot of extreme setups in the last few weekends, and it feels like I've found my way a little bit. And little by little, I hope there will be more performance to extract from the car in the weekends to come."

Leclerc will start the Bahrain GP in P2 after both Mercedes drivers were handed a one-place grid penalty by the FIA.

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Charles Leclerc credits the team for bringing the upgrades

In a bit of a U-turn from yesterday, Charles Leclerc credited the upgrades for the kind of lap time that he was able to extract. The margins that we saw in qualifying were minute, and every tenth mattered. alluding to how whatever progress the Ferrari made with the upgrades definitely helped, the driver said:

"The team has pushed like crazy to bring those upgrades here. I don't think it's the best track to have upgrades on, but it's always good. It's a small gain, not a big one, but hopefully next week it should be a bit more of a step. If we are P3 today, especially considering such fine margins with P3, the upgrades helped."

Charles Leclerc's lap was made even more special by the fact that the driver not only secured a P3, but also dominated his teammate Lewis Hamilton in the process. Bahrain has always been one of his favorite tracks, and the gap he had over Hamilton is proof of that.