Charles Leclerc puzzled by major Ferrari Monaco surprise

Charles Leclerc has revealed his befuddlement at Ferrari's Monaco Grand Prix pace despite his pre-event worries.

Coming into the weekend, Leclerc felt Ferrari was not in contention for victory owing to weaknesses in the low-speed corners of the SF-25 package.

However, he topped all three practice sessions, Q1 and then claimed provisional pole until he was pipped by 0.109s by Lando Norris to P on the grid. 

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was fourth on the grid on the road, having been close to Leclerc throughout the weekend, but starts seventh following a penalty for impeding Max Verstappen.

However, Leclerc revealed he simply did not have any answers behind Ferrari's shock performance, although he did offer a potential explanation when questioned.

"No, I am not satisfied because you forget very quickly the expectations you have going into a weekend when the free practices are going so well," Leclerc told media, including RacingNews365. 

"I think we were wrong with the expectations that we had, but at the end of the day, it was a lot more positive than what we initially thought.

"We still need to understand why, to be completely honest, for me, it is an unknown. 

"I don't know why we are so fast in the slow speed. The only explanation I can find for now is that on a track like this, where there’s only low speed, basically no high-speed corners, in most of the tracks, we had to take compromises in order not to lose too much in high-speed corners. 

"We don’t have to set up the car in a way where we compromise anything here because we just focus on the low speed. 

"When we are on these kinds of tracks, it seems that there’s some performance in the low speed from the car, but we are a little bit stuck at the moment on other tracks, so I don’t think we can apply it to any other tracks other than Monaco, unfortunately."