Charles Leclerc has admitted that Ferrari is “nowhere near Mercedes” after finishing around eight tenths behind pole-sitter George Russell’s Silver Arrow during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Leclerc went into the weekend wary of Mercedes’ potential, and his fears were realized in final practice and qualifying, where Russell and Kimi Antonelli unleashed an impressive level of speed.

Leclerc eventually came fourth, with teammate Lewis Hamilton in seventh – the Ferraris sandwiched with the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and reigning world champion Lando Norris.

After qualifying, Leclerc was asked if he felt surprised by the gap to Mercedes and frustrated at not being able to secure third position on the grid, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in the lead at the end of Q3.

“Frustration for P3, no doubt,” Leclerc responded. “I won’t go into details because it is a very complex car to explain, but in Q2 we had problems with our deployment.

“Then in Q3, because of the red flag, we had to re-optimize everything on the last lap, and we couldn’t do it. We were a little bit suboptimal on that last lap, and that definitely cost us third position.”

“We weren’t even close to Mercedes. Maybe by optimizing everything we would have a tenth and a half, but I’m pretty sure that’s everyone’s story too.” [These are] Cars so complex that no one, as I would expect, was optimizing absolutely the entire car today.

“As for the other question, I’m not that surprised. I was in front of the cameras yesterday, I don’t know if I said the number, but I thought maybe they were half a second ahead, and in the end they’re eight tenths ahead.

“I think this morning I didn’t expect what they showed, and I think they were rejected a lot more than everyone in the paddock thought. At the same time… We can only respect what they have done with the engine and the amount of performance they found compared to others.”

When asked if he and Ferrari can impress Mercedes in the race, the Monegasque added: “I can’t do anything. Yesterday they were super, super strong. I don’t think they had the engine running like they did this morning. I don’t even know if they were at full power in qualifying, maybe they held on a little bit, because this morning was crazy.”

“Tomorrow I don’t really know what to expect, but I think they will be in another world, probably in less than a second.” [a lap] faster than everyone else. “That’s what I would expect, but I hope I’m wrong.”

Across the Ferrari garage, Hamilton was a tenth and a half slower than Leclerc and complained of engine problems midway through qualifying.

“The whole weekend was looking good until Q2,” he explained. “Q1 on the medium tire felt solid and I felt really good, then we went into Q2 and we had some issues with our engine.

“We ended up having to go in, and that put a lot of pressure on us to have to go out and try to execute it on one lap, with a tire that we hadn’t used yet, at least in qualifying, and that was complicated. Then we went to Q3 and it was a disaster for everyone, so it was a little random.”

“I think there’s a lot more performance in the car and we just didn’t execute everything perfectly. Honestly, I think if it had gone perfectly, we could have been third today.”