Charles Leclerc left frustrated by Ferrari’s strategy during Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying

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Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix ended in familiar fashion to the 2023 season, but Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was left frustrated with his team’s strategy at one point during the session.

When the chequered flag came down, Max Verstappen was once again the fastest out of the 20 cars but both Ferrari drivers may feel they should have done better.

Over the team radio on Friday afternoon, Leclerc was heard disagreeing with the Ferrari pit wall.

Leclerc disagrees with strategy during Bahrain GP qualifying

Red Bull’s pace in testing suggested that they could be miles ahead of the rest of the field this season.

However, Ferrari showed during practice and Friday afternoon’s qualifying session that they’re a decent match over one lap for the current champions.

In fact, Charles Leclerc may feel he should be on pole position for Saturday’s race after setting the best lap of the day.

Unfortunately, he did so in Q2 and couldn’t match that pace when it counted with his final lap.

However, earlier in qualifying, Leclerc was left annoyed by Ferrari’s strategy that forced him to do more running than he would have liked in Bahrain.

Given how ineffective the medium tyre is in Sakhir, every set of soft tyres is precious.

It means every time he heads onto the track, there has to be a calculated reason and the 26-year-old was unhappy with one run.

Leclerc failed to fulfil full potential in Sakhir

With the first qualifying session coming to an end, Leclerc was sitting in the top five and had a decent buffer to the drop zone.

However, he was sent out by Ferrari on one last run, to which he said: “I do not agree with this.”

Over the team radio, his engineer replied: “You’ve got to go, we are just checking the track evolution.”

In the end, Leclerc was right and he safely made it through qualifying in Bahrain despite Ferrari’s strategy call.

He’ll be hoping to get a good getaway on Saturday evening and if he can run alongside Max Verstappen into turn one, he’s got a great chance to take the lead.

It will then all come down to whether Ferrari can match Red Bull’s race pace which proved virtually impossible in 2023.