While Lewis Hamilton left the Ferrari garage full of smiles after claiming sprint pole, there was less to celebrate on the other side of the garage, as Charles Leclerc finished more than three tenths behind his team-mate and had to settle for fourth on the Formula 1 British Grand Prix sprint race grid.
Although Leclerc has often excelled in qualifying over recent year – including last season, particularly compared to his team-mate – the Monegasque believes this year's struggles are part of a broader trend.
Leclerc is still searching for the right feeling with the SF-26 and has yet to find clear answers.
Following the Monaco Grand Prix, he switched from Brembo to Carbone Industrie brake discs and, although that has slightly improved his feeling under braking, it has certainly not solved all of the underlying issues.
Asked what exactly he is missing compared to Hamilton, the eight-time grand prix winner replied: "That’s what I’m looking at, at the moment. Obviously, it’s been a bit since I realised that I didn’t have the same ease that I had with last year’s car.
"Even when I push and when I put things together, we speak about hundreds."
According to Leclerc, that means there is still work to do, particularly to regain the confidence that is needed to extract the final few percent from the Ferrari when it really matters.
"Lewis is more often at 100% of the potential of the car, which I’m not. So I’ve got to work on everything really," he added.
The picture is not entirely straightforward either. Leclerc explained that in Austria he felt comfortable up until qualifying, with race pace on Sunday becoming the main issue.
At Spielberg, he lined up ahead of Hamilton on the grid, but at Silverstone he admitted he struggled much more over a single lap than he had in Austria: "I think most importantly is just my feeling with this car.
"When you don’t quite get the feeling, then it’s difficult to extract the lap time and to have the confidence for every Saturday going into qualifying to get to the limit of the car, which I’m struggling to do.
"[It’s about] being consistent, to be at my 100%. In SQ1 and SQ2 I was close to it, and I was also quite confident for SQ3, but then I lost the car. I just don’t feel the car as well as I should."
Ferrari surprises itself at Silverstone
The situation is all the more frustrating for Leclerc as Ferrari's 2026 car clearly has potential.
That became evident again on Friday at Silverstone, much to the surprise of many within the Scuderia. Frederic Vasseur's team had expected to struggle at the power-sensitive circuit, but the exact opposite turned out to be the case.
"We are extremely surprised with Lewis taking the pole today, but in general we were expecting a much bigger gap to the cars in front," Leclerc continued.
"It’s a good step forward, but yeah, as a team we are just very, very surprised to be that competitive on a track like this."
