Formula 1 | Alfa Romeo Sauber, Leclerc disappointed: “Promising pace, but I have to work on myself”

Disappointing qualification for Alfa Romeo Sauber on the Sakhir route. Despite the progress made compared to the Melbourne weekend, Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson failed to gain access to Q2, closing today's qualifying in seventeenth and nineteenth position. The Monegasque, author of a good weekend to date, he made a bad mistake on his last attempt in Q1, nullifying any possibility of passing the round. The Italian-Swiss team expects an extremely different Sunday and hopes that the race pace shown yesterday will help the riders move up the rankings after a disappointing Saturday.

Here are the words of Marcus Ericsson: "Today we decided with the team to focus more on preparing for the race and FP3 was a really good session. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make those little extra steps towards the end of Q1 as our opponents did. It's a little disappointing to go out in Q1 because we felt Q2 was doable – but in the end it's good to see that we're making progress. We've worked a lot on the race set-up and I expect to be fighting during tomorrow's race, so let's see what's possible."

Here are Charles Leclerc's impressions: “We had a good Friday, but today was a little more difficult. The balance of the car wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be, but I think I still have some work to do to adapt to this type of car. In particular, I need to learn to drive with more understeer, which I'm struggling with at the moment. In the end it was a bit frustrating, but I will definitely learn from this experience and do my best to come back stronger in tomorrow's race. The pace we showed yesterday is promising, therefore it will be important to make a good start and recover positions."

Roberto Valenti