Ferrari arrived at Interlagos searching for a way back into the podium fight and, within a few hours of running on Friday, Leclerc was telling reporters the car felt worse than at any point this year.

The Monegasque finished seventh in FP2, 0.72 seconds adrift of pace-setter Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and he made no effort to soften the verdict afterwards.

“FP2 was very tricky. Actually, if anything, one of the worst feeling I’ve had this year in the car,” Leclerc told Sky Sports after the session.

What made the diagnosis so uncomfortable was that the losses were coming from two directions at once. The SF-26 was slow in a straight line, as expected at an altitude circuit that punishes any shortfall in power unit deployment, but the real alarm was that the car also struggled to find grip through Interlagos’ quick corners, a sector where Ferrari usually trades best.

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Vasseur: ‘a lot to do on the balance’

Team principal Fred Vasseur did not try to dress the problem up. Speaking to Motorsport.com, he acknowledged “a couple of issues” and “a lot of work” ahead, pointing to deployment losses of a couple of tenths on Leclerc’s fastest lap in a straight line and conceding there was “a lot to do on the balance.”

Leclerc confirmed Ferrari would overhaul the setup overnight ahead of qualifying. “I’ve got some ideas. We’ll change the car quite significantly, and we’ll see how it goes,” he told Sky Sports.

Lewis Hamilton had little to add to the Ferrari picture beyond his own frustration at a bumpy, low-grip surface that made it difficult to generate tyre temperature, a concern heading into a weekend with rain forecast for Saturday afternoon and cold conditions expected on race day.

Qualifying: Leclerc salvaged, Hamilton did not

The overnight changes clawed back enough for Leclerc to grab third on the grid behind the McLaren of Lando Norris and Antonelli’s Mercedes, a materially better outcome than Friday had promised. Oscar Piastri lined up fourth in the other McLaren.

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Hamilton did not find the same escape route. The Ferrari did not make it out of Q2 on his side of the garage, leaving him with far more to do in the race than his teammate.

Verstappen starts from the pit lane

The other headline of Saturday belonged to Max Verstappen, who was knocked out in Q1 and will now start from the pit lane after Red Bull broke parc ferme to fit a new power unit and reshape the setup on his RB21, which carries the automatic pit lane penalty.

That puts Norris on pole, Verstappen behind the field before the formation lap, and Ferrari relying on a Leclerc front-row shadow and a Hamilton recovery drive to rescue a weekend their lead driver, less than 24 hours earlier, called one of the worst he has had in the car.

Lights out at Interlagos is scheduled for 2pm local time on Sunday.

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