Charles Leclerc praises Ferrari debutant Oliver Bearman for a “special job” in his maiden F1 outing

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was full of praise for his young teammate Oliver Bearman after the latter finished P11 in the Saudi Arabian GP qualifying session.

The young Brit was thrown into the deep end of F1 when he got the news of standing in for Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari F1 team for the Saudi Arabian GP just before FP3.

Despite limited running in the SF-24, Bearman impressed everyone with his pace in the qualifying session on the streets of Jeddad as he finished 0.36s off getting into Q3.

Speaking in his post-quali interview with F1, Charles Leclerc praised Oliver Bearman for his 'special' effort and said:

"First of all, I hope Carlos will recover quickly. Then on Ollie's side, he has done an incredible job. With only one session in FP3, he was straight up to speed and comfortable with the car, so it's good."

"I'm happy for him obviously. It's a very special day and the first race in Ferrari having only done one session I guess is even more special. I hope tomorrow we can both have a great race and score strong points for the team."

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Charles Leclerc previews the Saudi Arabian GP on Saturday

Charles Leclerc analyzed his qualifying session after finishing on the front row behind Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and stated that he was 'really happy' with his lap.

As per the aforementioned source, the Ferrari driver said:

"The first lap in Q3 we tried something different, doing a preparation lap, but that didn't work out well for us. Then in the second lap, I put everything together and that was what was in the car today.

"Really happy with the lap; shame we are further away than we hoped in qualifying but tomorrow is the race and I hope we will have a good surprise and we will be able to challenge the Red Bulls."

Charles Leclerc recognized that the team made gains from last year and added that he felt 'comfortable' in the SF-24 and it was better in race runs, adding:

"For sure we did a step forward compared to last year. I feel comfortable in the car and the car is in a better place in race runs. We just have to focus on ourselves and obviously, we cannot change the car for tomorrow, so we'll try and optimize everything else for the race, then let's see what is possible."