Charles Leclerc has taken “full responsibility” for the “choice” that left him unable to qualify higher than seventh for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Monegasque driver chose to qualify “in the middle” of Q3, against recommendations from his Ferrari team.

Charles Leclerc says P7 qualifying is “on me”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher.

Charles Leclerc says he’s taking “full responsibility” for his P7 qualifying position at the Spanish Grand Prix — a position he felt was unrepresentative of his true pace.

In practice, the Monegasque had used an additional set of soft tyres, which meant that all he had remaining in Q3 was one set of new softs and one set of used, thereby limiting his plan of action.

According to Leclerc, Ferrari had advised him to opt for a strategy that would have seen him bolt on his used softs for a flying lap, just to get a time on the board. Then, he should pit for fresh tyres and have another go.

But Leclerc chose a different plan of attack.

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“I think that with two sets [of soft tyres] in Q3, it’s always easier,” Leclerc told media, including PlanetF1.com, when asked if he’d have benefitted from saving an extra set of softs for qualifying.

“I probably would have found time. How much I don’t know. Also, I think there was a bit more clouds.”

Still, the ultimate run plan was his decision.

“I take full responsibility of the way the qualifying has gone,” Leclerc said.

“It was my choice, and in Q3, it was my choice to go in the middle when the team was pushing me to go to the end.

“I still wanted to have a Plan B, in case that one lap wasn’t going to plan — a mistake, or whatsoever — the chance to have a second lap. So that’s on me.

“And I also did all these choices in order to have better tyres for tomorrow’s race.

“If tomorrow we have a very bad race, then I have to take the responsibility of a bad weekend. If it goes well, then I’m happy to take the credit of pushing the team one way. But only time will tell.”

Still, his lower starting position rankled.

“Obviously, P7 is a little bit below our expectations,” Leclerc explained.

“Even with the choices I’ve made for qualifying, I expect it to be a bit further up. But it’s the way it is. now. The choices are made, and I hope that tomorrow it will pay off.”

Making his qualifying session particularly painful was the fact that he’d felt confident in his SF-25 earlier in the weekend as a result of the new technical directives clamping down on flexi-wings — only for the car to revert to its “normal” state just in time for qualifying.

He told media, “I was a bit more optimistic after FP1, FP2. I thought that the car was behaving pretty well.

“Unfortunately in qualifying, it went back to normal, and that’s a little bit what I was thinking of last night: That we’ll only see when everybody goes flat-out in quali — and McLaren is still a step ahead.”

Still, there’s plenty to be optimistic about.

“I think we are doing steps in the right direction,” he said.

“I haven’t checked the whole lap, if we are using everything in the first sector or not. I’ll have a look at that. But it felt a bit better.”

Charles Leclerc will line up seventh on the grid for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. His team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, will start a row ahead of him in fifth.

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