Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur was satisfied with both Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc carrying the strong momentum from their first day at the 2026 F1 Malaysia round into qualifying.
Hamilton placed himself on the front row with a time of 1:35.428 and will be starting the 2026 F1 Malaysia event in P2. His teammate, Leclerc, qualified P5 but will be starting in the second row in P4 instead, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar taking a five-place grid penalty.
Vasseur reflects on Ferrari’s qualifying performance at 2026 F1 Malaysia event
Looking ahead to the 2026 F1 Malaysia race, Vasseur reflected to Sky Sports that while the team celebrated the good qualifying results, the Scuderia’s focus is now set on the main race, as he shared, “It’s a good quali, but the success is on Sunday. It’s never on Saturday.”
The Frenchman also highlighted that despite having a good starting position, he argues that good tyre management will be vital to succeeding tomorrow due to the nature of the tarmac at Sepang International Circuit. Nonetheless, he is still pleased to have Hamilton and Leclerc start on the front and second row, respectively.
“On the top, we know that this one will be a lot about degradation, about race pace, about tyre management and much more than a great position. But I prefer to have a good quali than not. Let’s start from the first and the second row with Lewis and Charles. It’s a good start but honestly we have to put now all of our focus on the race and the race management.”
Vasseur on tyre allocations
Ferrari also took a different approach when it came to tyre allocation. Going into the 2026 F1 Malaysia race, both Hamilton and Leclerc will have new sets of softs, unlike most of their competitors. Max Verstappen is the only other driver with a brand new one available.
Vasseur shared his insights into how the Scuderia planned to make the soft tyres work at the 2026 F1 Malaysia round. According to the Frenchman, Ferrari will be experimenting with different tyre strategies as it was difficult to truly understand how each compound reacted to the track due to the tricky track conditions the day prior.
“I think we are not that far away from Max but for sure it’s difficult to read the tyres on Friday because you don’t have so many laps. The track was very dirty yesterday. I think we all have different opinions on the different compounds and we’ll see tomorrow. But for sure it’s not an easy exercise.”
Leclerc’s qualifying struggles
Vasseur then spoke on Charles Leclerc’s unhappy post-qualifying radio message to the team. The Monegasque final flying lap saw a lap time of 1:35.666, 0.238s slower than teammate Lewis Hamilton. Despite the relatively small margin, the Monegasque appeared confused about the pace deficit.
The Frenchman shared that Leclerc had experienced a snap before Turn 5 on his first flying lap of Q3, resulting in a slower middle sector. He then continued to struggle with the same issues on his final lap.
Vasseur explained how the high track temperature of the Sepang International Circuit, along with the snap, meant that Leclerc’s rear tyres overheated early in the lap.
Looking ahead to the 2026 F1 Malaysia race, Vasseur is still confident that Leclerc will be able to perform.
“He had a huge snap on the lap before turn 5 and he was almost close to lose it. And I think the lap after he was also on the back foot with the same kind of snap. And as soon as you have this kind of balance that with this track temperature you are overheating the rear and you are dead for the rest of the lap. For sure it’s a bit of a shame for Charles because he was more performant in the previous stint [laps]. But let’s see tomorrow, it will be a very long one and everything is open.”
