Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur admitted he expected more from qualifying after neither of his drivers claimed places in the top three.
The team headed all three practice sessions at the Circuit of the Americas but managed no higher than fourth and fifth on the grid for Sunday’s race.Charles Leclerc, who qualified fourth, blamed the drop in track temperature between the final two rounds for their loss of pace.
“I don’t think that the others have changed anything from Q2 to Q3,” he told Sky. “Where we’ve lost is on ourselves and that is mostly the tyres.
“The out-lap was extremely difficult, there was a bit more cloud in Q3, we lost one or two degrees of track temp and for us it was night and day difference. Already from the out-laps I felt like I was having lots of difficulties.
“It’s a shame that it happens in Q3 because I strongly believe that we had the pace to be fighting in front, but unfortunately not today, again.”
However Vasseur said the team cannot use the change in conditions as an excuse. “I think Q2 was a bit faster for everybody,” he said. “We all struggled to improve in Q3, perhaps a bit of wind or whatever, and it’s also a distraction for the drivers.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“But it’s the same for everybody, we can’t complain about the wind, this would be bullshit. Now I think we have to do a better job on the last lap, because we had the potential to be at least on the first row.”
Vasseur said he had “mixed feelings” about the session “because I think the potential was there all over the weekend.
“We had good pace in all the free practice [sessions]. Until the last corner we were fighting for the pole and it is like it is, it’s all part of the game.
“Now let’s be focused on tomorrow because I think tomorrow will be a different exercise, it will be difficult one with a lot of degradation and we’ll see what happens.
“But for sure there is a bit of frustration because we had very good potential. Until the last corner of Q3 I think we were in better shape.”