Explained: Factors that led Charles Leclerc's disastrous qualifying in the 2023 F1 Australian GP

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc will start the Australian Grand Prix from P7, right behind Lance Stroll in P6 and ahead of Alex Albon in P8.

Following the qualification session, the Monegasque driver claimed he couldn't recall the last time he was so unsatisfied with his own performance.

In another first for the season, Leclerc was the slower of the two Ferrari drivers, lapping a tenth slower than Sainz in Q3.

He thought that a combination of "not driving well" and Q3 mishandling, which resulted in his teammate moving ahead of him on a practice lap, contributed to his and Ferrari's worst qualifying performance of 2023.

Speaking in a post-quali interview, Leclerc said:

"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."

Apart from a minor snap at the final turn, Leclerc's first run in Q3 was easy but unspectacular. He finished sixth, 0.127s behind Sainz. But elements of his disappointing second run were set when he was advised that rain was on the way and the notion of omitting the warmup lap was broached.

Leclerc skipped a prep lap on his first run in Q1, but later shifted to an outlap push plan. However, upon his return to the pits, he agreed that the warmup lap might be dropped if required due to the impending rain. But rain never came to Albert Park during qualifying.

Leclerc finished his lap, which featured a brief window in the last curve that cost enough time to tip the race in Sainz's favor, but he was far from sure in his steering inputs, particularly in the first sector.

The Monegasque also appeared to sarcastically thank his teammate for giving him a tow through turns 3 and 4, considering that having a car in front in turns 3 and 4 is extremely inconvenient.

Nevertheless, this was the result of Ferrari's poor final-run management rather than Sainz purposefully causing issues by failing to see the challenges created by strategic differences and the relative location of the two cars.

---

Charles Leclerc thanked Sainz for the tow he did not receive because of a Ferrari mismanagement

Due to a series of miscommunications, Ferrari missed out on a top-three starting position for the Australian Grand Prix.

As Sainz was preparing for a build lap, Leclerc intended to push from the end of his out lap due to the possibility of rain. Race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros informed Leclerc that his teammate would "give him a tow on the main straight." But as Sainz began his build lap on the Albert Park circuit, Leclerc was just over three seconds behind his teammate.

Sainz looked anxious about getting in the path of his teammate before a lengthy straight back, so he pulled over on the exit of turn four to let Leclerc through. This allowed him to avoid impeding Leclerc while also denying him a probable slipstream down the straight.

Sainz and Leclerc were left confused as to why the pit wall asked them to do that. During the post-quali interview, Charles Leclerc jokingly thanked Sainz for the tow.