"The performance is not there": Charles Leclerc concedes after securing #5 grid slot for the F1 Spanish GP

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc conceded that the performance is 'just not there' for the car to fight for pole position. The driver dominated the weekend in Monaco where he last secured the spot. Since then, the driver and the team have not found it easy.

The weather in Canada meant that the Ferrari was completely out of its working range, and in Barcelona, the car was just too far behind in the battle for pole position.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were right in the middle of the battle for pole position at the start of the qualifying session, but as it ramped up, the Ferraris just couldn't live up to the pace others were displaying in Q3.

Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will start the race in the third row, with Leclerc in P5 and Sainz in P6. Looking back at qualifying, Leclerc admitted that the performance was "just not there" with the car. He told F1.com,

“Well, we struggled a lot. In terms of performance mostly I’m a bit shared between two sides of me. One side is… We did a really good job from yesterday to today in terms of car set-up. I changed completely the car on my side because yesterday I felt really bad in the car, and today the feeling is back."

He added,

"However, the other side is that I’m mostly very disappointed with today, because the performance is not there and we are too far away from pole from where we would like to be. It’s not a great day for the team, but tomorrow is the race and we’ll try to maximise our points and then as soon as the weekend is finished try to understand why we were further away than what we thought of pole.”

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Charles Leclerc's teammate echoes his sentiments

Charles Leclerc's teammate Carlos Sainz echoed what the Ferrari driver said, admitting he was quite disappointed with the result. The Spaniard in his home race in Barcelona will start alongside Leclerc in P6 and felt that once McLaren and Red Bull started ramping things up in qualifying, he just couldn't compete.

He told F1.com,

“Not good. Obviously disappointed. We had strong practice sessions and we were expecting to be in the fight for pole position. Immediately in Q2, once Red Bull and McLaren turned it up, we just didn’t have the pace."

“We could sit here and argue about three hundredths, we would have been P3 and we would all be happy, but the reality is no, I was expecting to fight for pole this weekend, or after free practice. To be more than three tenths off is a lot of lap time,” he added.

Charles Leclerc currently finds himself P2 on the Championship standings but given the underwhelming weekend in Montreal coupled with how Barcelona is panning out, he is vulnerable to lose the position to Lando Norris, who starts the race today in pole position and is only seven points behind.