It was a day of contrasts at Ferrari as Charles Leclerc managed an impressive fourth on the grid for Sunday's British Grand Prix.

After practice, the Monegasque had been upbeat about the Scuderia's single-lap pace having taken a bold approach to run less wing that most around Silverstone.

However, not only is Leclerc back where Ferrari typically belong near the front of the grid, he was also able to make it into Q3 on the same strategy as the other frontrunning cars.

“I am extremely happy about today. I didn’t expect to be in P4 for tomorrow’s race, especially not starting with medium [tyres]," he told the media.

"We tried it but we weren’t very confident about making it and to make it work was very nice."

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With the chance to now avoid the high-degrading soft compound, Leclerc also hopes it can boost Ferrari's race pace after a horrible run long on Friday.

"It's not looking good for the race tomorrow because of our race pace - we are struggling," he stated.

"I think we have the pace but we are just destroying the tyres very quickly compared to the others so starting on the medium will help us massively.’’

Meanwhile, across the garage, Sebastian Vettel's miserable weekend continued as he could only manage 10th.

"I don't want to accuse anyone of bad intentions," he told Channel 4.

"From my side it was not ideal today. I had a lot of trouble finding the rhythm. As I said, I am relatively confident that tomorrow will be better.

"How much, I don't know - I can't promise anything, but it can't get much worse.

"Yesterday, we didn't get much running, not many quality laps, and this morning, we had another small issue. So yeah, not ideal, but equally, I thought the car was okay.

"I struggled to put it together. So I think it's probably more me just making sure everything comes together."

Unlike Leclerc, however, Vettel will have to contend with starting on the soft compound to start the race.

"Tomorrow we'll be on the wrong tyres at the end of the queue, at the end of the top 10, so it won't be a piece of cake," he conceded to Sky Sports.