Leclerc: I did a 'very bad job' in first F1 Q3 session for Ferrari

The Monegasque driver was quicker than team-mate Sebastian Vettel in the first and second parts of qualifying, but ended up fifth on the grid behind the two Mercedes, Vettel and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Leclerc, who had been quickest of all in Q1, shouldered the blame for his disappointing showing.

"[I'm] very disappointed with myself," said Leclerc.

"I was not here when I had to be in Q3. It's all down to me.

"I did a very bad job in the last run of Q3 and unfortunately it showed on the lap time.

"That's life. I will learn from it and I'll come back stronger."

The Ferrari driver described his final Q3 lap as "pretty poor".

"I locked my front wheel in the first corner of the second lap and I lost quite a bit of time," he explained.

"Then overall the lap was pretty poor. I did some mistakes here and there."

Leclerc felt he had the pace to outqualify team-mate Vettel, but conceded Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were out of reach.

"Obviously there's the gap to Mercedes that I can't really explain for now and that's why we have to work very hard," he added.

"But on my side, I didn't do the job and there was definitely a bit of time, but the top two was unreachable.

"I think the potential to be top three was there."

Like Vettel, Leclerc said finishing more than seven tenths of a second behind Mercedes was a big surprise.

"Yesterday they already showed very strong pace but we still had the doubt - and we still had some things [to show] and they probably too but we didn't know how much," he said.

"I think it's a pretty big shock to see how far [behind] we are."