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Leclerc critical of own performance after P7 qualifying

Charles Leclerc gave a brutal assessment of his own driving performance after qualifying in P7 for the Australian Grand Prix.

Charles Leclerc provided an honest assessment of his own performance after a difficult Formula 1 qualifying day for Ferrari in Melbourne. With neither Ferrari driver looking like challenging for Pole Position, Carlos Sainz and Leclerc finished the qualifying hour in P5 and P7, mixing with the Aston Martins. Speaking after the session, where he finished over six tenths off Max Verstappen, Leclerc commented that he wasn't entirely happy with his track positioning behind Sainz for the final flying lap, but admitted that he "wasn't driving well" regardless.

"Q1 and Q2, clearly I wasn't on it. I wasn't driving well, I wasn't putting everything together. So that was my fault," Leclerc commented to media, including RacingNews365.com . "Q3, I managed to fare a bit better. In the car, I was quite confident I could put everything together. "Unfortunately, I don't know what happened in the second run of Q3, whether it was a miscommunication with Carlos or whatever, but I found myself behind him for the whole first sector, which wasn't great. "We'll speak at the debrief about that to try and improve those situations." When asked if he had found additional difficulties with the rain and red flag interruptions, Leclerc refused to point to external factors for his qualifying performance. "It was quite tricky, but to be honest, I feel like we are quite competitive, but I also just didn't put everything together, also in the first run of Q3," added Leclerc. "So, it's a bit my fault, because when you arrive to Q3 you need to put everything together in whatever laps you do. "We could have optimised it by having better communication, but I also didn't do a great job today."

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