Leclerc offered high-fuel hope for Belgian GP recovery

Charles Leclerc has conceded that Ferrari did not waste time on finding "useless" qualifying pace, with his high-fuel running offering confidence of a Sunday recovery.

The Ferrari driver is one of six to have been hit with a back-of-the-grid penalty for taking power unit and/or gearbox components beyond the prescribed limits for the season.

Despite ending the day second to title rival Max Verstappen, one of the other drivers set to start from the back, Leclerc revealed his high-fuel pace offered a level of comfort given his potential lowly starting position.

"Overall, it wasn't too bad of a day," assessed Leclerc. "Of course, we tested quite a few things.

"I think everybody was on a very different programme so it is very difficult to compare on this first day back from the holidays but overall the feeling was quite okay.

"Low-fuel pace seems to be poor but the high fuel is quite okay, so let's see.

"We will keep working, try to do a step in the night and try to come back stronger on Saturday."

Asked what the team had done differently knowing that the penalty was coming, Leclerc added: "We didn't put as much attention as we would normally do on the qualifying pace because it would be a little bit useless.

"So, [there was] more attention on the race pace to try to come back to the front as quickly as possible."

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