Charles Leclerc has revealed his Ferrari suffered from a "weird" brake issue during Singapore Grand Prix qualifying, as the Monegasque narrowly missed out on pole position to Max Verstappen.
Leclerc qualified second at Marina Bay, just 0.054s behind the Red Bull driver, who took pole with a lap of 1m 31.373. Lewis Hamilton completed a strong session for Ferrari in third, with Kimi Antonelli fourth for Mercedes.
Despite the final result, Leclerc's path through qualifying was far from straightforward. The 28-year-old struggled through the early stages at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, a track notorious for punishing braking zones.
It was only in the final runs of Q3 that Leclerc managed to put together a lap good enough to challenge for top spot, though he conceded the margin to Verstappen ultimately came down to his own mistakes rather than pace alone.
"The good lap was on the right lap at the end, but I had a lot of struggles during this qualifying," said Leclerc.
"Q1 and Q2 were very difficult. I had some weird things going on with the brakes, the car pulling a bit under braking, which is not so nice on a track like here.
"But then in Q3, the lap was ok. I did some mistakes. I think there was a potential to be on pole today but Max just did a better job."
Charles Leclerc convinced Singapore pole was possible
Leclerc also addressed suggestions that he and Hamilton had settled on similar set-up directions for Ferrari across the weekend, with the Briton splitting the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers in third.
Asked if himself and Hamilton converged on set-up, Leclerc said: "Well, I guess, yeah. On my side, I changed the car a little bit to make sure we got the final fine-tuning right.
"I was relatively happy with the car yesterday, so we changed a few things, but not so much. At the end of the day, it was just a bit of misjudgement in Q3 with the wing.
"Maybe we could have done a bit of a better job, but I think if you ask all the drivers on the grid, everybody can find something on that last lap in Q3."
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