Charles Leclerc delivered a blunt assessment after Australian Grand Prix Qualifying, saying Ferrari were “nowhere near Mercedes” as the new season began with the Silver Arrows demonstrating a level of speed he suggested may not have been fully revealed earlier in the weekend.
What did Charles Leclerc see that changed the picture in Melbourne?
Across the first day on track, Ferrari showed flashes of competitiveness. In the opening practice session at Albert Park, Leclerc set the pace ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, before McLaren’s Oscar Piastri went quickest in the second session. Yet Leclerc finished second practice in fifth, just behind Hamilton, and said Mercedes’ performance on longer runs stood out even without topping Friday’s timesheets.
Leclerc described Mercedes as “very, very strong” and said the pace on high fuel was “very impressive, ” adding that he did not believe Mercedes had shown everything in low-fuel running. He framed that as the first clearer indication of how much performance Mercedes had in hand, even while calling Ferrari’s opening day “quite a positive start” and committing to work to “maximise everything” for the next day.
That tension—early Ferrari promise alongside an emerging Mercedes advantage—set the stage for Saturday’s Qualifying, where the gap became stark in lap time rather than suggestion.
How big was the qualifying gap—and what went wrong for Ferrari?
Ferrari ended the opening Qualifying session of the season with fourth and seventh on the grid. Leclerc qualified fourth, while Hamilton was seventh. Between them were the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and reigning World Champion Lando Norris, while Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar secured third at the end of Q3.
Leclerc finished roughly eight-tenths behind pole-sitter George Russell in the Mercedes. He said he had entered the weekend wary of Mercedes’ potential, and felt those concerns were borne out in final practice and Qualifying as Russell and Kimi Antonelli “unleashed an impressive level of speed. ”
Leclerc also pointed to execution problems that, in his view, cost Ferrari a better grid slot. He said Ferrari had “issues with our deployment” in Q2, and that a red flag in Q3 forced the team to “re-optimise everything” on the final lap. Leclerc said the team was “a bit sub-optimal” on that decisive run, and that it “definitely cost us P3. ”
Hamilton’s session was shaped by reliability trouble. He said the weekend had “been looking good up until Q2, ” but that Ferrari encountered “some problems with our engine” midway through Qualifying. Hamilton said that issue forced him to return to the pits, creating pressure to execute a single lap on a tyre he had not used in Qualifying. He then described Q3 as “a mess for everybody” and “a bit random, ” while adding that there was “a lot more performance in the car” that Ferrari did not extract perfectly.
If Mercedes was “turned down, ” what does that imply for the race?
Leclerc’s post-Qualifying comments went beyond a simple deficit on one lap. He indicated that Mercedes’ pace may have been partially hidden earlier, and suggested the team escalated performance in a way rivals did not anticipate. He said he had estimated Mercedes might be “half a second ahead, ” but that the reality in Qualifying was closer to eight-tenths. He also said that what Mercedes showed in the morning was not expected, and that Mercedes had been “a lot more turned down than what everybody thought in the paddock. ”
Leclerc credited Mercedes’ work on performance, saying Ferrari could “only respect what they’ve done with the engine, and the amount of performance they found compared to others. ” He then raised an additional uncertainty: he said he did not know whether Mercedes had used full power in Qualifying, adding that “maybe they kept a little bit. ”
Pressed on whether Ferrari could challenge Mercedes in race trim, Leclerc was cautious. He said he could not change the situation, noted Mercedes were “super, super strong, ” and said the next day was difficult to predict. His expectation, however, was that Mercedes would be “in another world, ” potentially “probably a little bit less than a second [a lap] faster than everybody else, ” while adding he hoped to be wrong.
On the Mercedes side, Russell said the team would “have to take another step overnight” to be in the fight for pole position when Qualifying took place, even after finishing third fastest in the second practice session behind Piastri and Antonelli.
