Charles Leclerc has revealed he didn't believe Ferrari's pre-Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying simulations predicting Alfa Romeo's strong pace. The Monégasque will start the race sixth after failing to outpace Zhou Guanyu, who secured his career-best F1 result with fifth. Ferrari struggled for pace across the session with Carlos Sainz falling out in Q2 and asked how he felt after qualifying, Leclerc told media including RacingNews365 : "Not great, to be honest. "I was really happy with my lap and you look at the board and you're P6. "Yes, the margins are fine and very close until P4, but then the top three are quite a lot ahead, so we've got a lot of work to do."
Leclerc: Several teams ahead of Ferrari
"McLaren is showing that they've done a general big step forward," added Leclerc. "On a track like this, compared to Silverstone, it's two completely different characteristics and they are [still] very quick, so we need to do a step forward. "McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull now seem to be quite consistently ahead, at least at the last few races, and we need to work, otherwise we are just losing more and more points every weekend, so we need to do a big push." Zhou's teammate Valtteri Bottas is also well up in seventh place on the grid, and revealing his surprise, Leclerc said: "[They] were very strong. The team [Ferrari] showed me the simulations of what we think they will be like, and honestly, they were all correct. "It's very difficult to understand. I did not expect to have an Alfa Romeo in front of me for the race. "I don't think they had any particularly big upgrades for this weekend, but from one weekend to another, everybody's changing and struggling one weekend and fast the other, so it's very difficult to understand."
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