Ferrari star Charles Leclerc was left frustrated by understeer in a qualifying session at Monza that saw him earn fourth in a very closely-packed field.
Leclerc said he had the issue on Friday and believed it had been addressed after a good FP3, but it returned in qualifying and cost him precious tenths.
However he doesn’t expect it to be as much of an issue in Sunday’s race.
“Very frustrating, because we were close,” he said when asked by formu1a.uno about being so close to the front.
“But again, it’s not enough. In Turn 1, 2, 4, 5, we’ve had exactly the same issue since, FP1, FP2, just understeery, cannot rotate the car.
“FP3, for some reason there wasn’t a problem anymore, and then qualifying, it came back.
“So that’s what’s frustrating, because I think we lose over two-tenths, two-tenths and a half in four corners at the beginning of the lap, and then to come back is very difficult. But again, it is the way it is.
“Now we’ve got to focus on the race pace tomorrow. I don’t expect to have as much of an issue tomorrow in Turn, 1, 2, 4, 5, and hopefully that will help our race pace.”
Leclerc admitted that he had a slightly different set-up compared to Carlos Sainz, who started behind him in fifth.
“We had some slight differences, and he was definitely quite a bit stronger in Turn 1/2,” he said.
“Which is something that will analyse, that we have analysed already, and we didn’t quite make a step forward with my setup on that side. I gained everywhere else. So we decided to stay there.
“At the end it’s the same lap time. But it was very tricky.”
Leclerc said the new floor upgrade is working well, although he downplayed the lack of bouncing in Monza.
“I will be a bit more cautious with that,” he said. “Monza is a track where normally we don’t have these kind of issues. And also, yes, last year it was a pretty good race for us in terms of those weak characteristics of the bouncing.
“So I think we need a step forward. From numbers everything looks like it’s going much better. I don’t think we will have suffered of bouncing anyway on this track, even with the old package, but everything we were expecting from this floor is there. So this is a good sign for the future.”
Asked if he was looking forwards or backwards for Sunday’s race said: “I want to look forward. I mean, backwards there are quite a lot of guys that are super quick and that I will have expected to be in front of us today, but at the same time, I think we can have a good race.
“There wasn’t too many differences of pace, apart from Lewis, that did a really strong race pace in FP2, but he was bit too slow in the first part of the race, which I don’t think he can do tomorrow. So I think we’ll all have a very similar race pace.”
“I need a good start. And then try and use that DRS to try and stay within the McLaren, which we expect to be very, very strong. And then it will be a tyre management race, everybody, I think, as I said, has a very similar pace.
“Apart from any surprises tomorrow, I think we are all pretty similar. However, we’ve got to do a good job tyre management-wise, because this is what will do the difference tomorrow.”
Leclerc is not too worried about the Red Bulls, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez starting seventh and eighth.
“I think they will be strong. I think they will be strong tomorrow. However, I don’t expect them to be much stronger than we are in the race. So yeah, we shouldn’t look backward, but we’ll try to look forward, and hopefully go in and win that race.”
