Charles Leclerc admitted he wasn't quick enough in qualifying and blamed the lack of useful performances he had in Mexico on Friday.

The Ferrari driver skipped the first practice session as Ferrari took the opportunity to fulfill its obligation under the rules and use an inexperienced driver in its car. Although the second practice session was extended by half an hour, most of it was lost due to George Russell's accident and the teams had to spend the majority of the session testing development tires for Pirelli.

Leclerc was fourth fastest in all three qualifying phases. He was angry with himself after he was three tenths of a second slower on his final lap than his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr., who took pole position. “Bloody fucking lap,” he said to race engineer Bryan Bozzi on his in-lap.

Afterwards he said he was “not really” chasing pole position. “I was slow,” he told the official F1 channel. “I didn't have a good feeling since FP2 and knew it would be a very difficult weekend. P4 today was the best we could achieve.

“I'm disappointed with the qualifying speed, to be honest, being three tenths behind Carlos is quite a bit and I'm not happy with that.”

He said he didn't feel safe in the car all weekend. “It’s been like this since FP2,” said Leclerc. “Obviously I only ran so much and I never really recovered. The feeling was never really there, so it doesn't look good.

“It's not just one thing, but several things that make me probably not comfortable with the car and not as good as I should be.”

However, Leclerc remains confident that the car will come to him in race trim. “Given the speed of the race, I think I was probably the fastest yesterday, so that's a good sign for tomorrow. But starting fourth makes my life even more difficult.”

Advertisement | Become a RaceFans supporter and Become ad-free

Mexican Grand Prix 2024

Browse all 2024 Mexican Grand Prix articles