Charles Leclerc admits he has "absolutely no explanations" as to why Ferrari's pace dropped off so severely in Turkish Grand Prix qualifying.

The Monegasque had been keeping pace with the Red Bulls at the front in both the wet and dry conditions throughout practice, but in Q2, found himself six seconds off the pace being set by Max Verstappen.

“I have no explanations, absolutely no explanations,” said Leclerc, who was only 14th fastest said post-session.

“We went in the heavy rain in FP3 this morning, we were competitive, we were probably one of the fastest cars out on track coming into qualifying.

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"But six seconds off. We’re not speaking a few tenths, we finished six seconds off which is absolutely huge. I have no explanations for that.

“We need to understand what we are doing wrong in the rain because this is not one time, but it’s been a few times in the rain, we are struggling more than the others, and we’re not speaking about small differences.

“I don’t know what could be the cause because again this morning, it was raining and on intermediates, we were competitive. So no explanations.”

Saturday also marked the first time since Hungary that Leclerc was out-qualified by teammate Sebastian Vettel, although the German could do no better than 12th as neither Ferrari made the top 10.

Asked about the conditions at Istanbul Park, Vettel explained the challenge of trying to go fast on the gripless new tarmac.

“It’s something we haven’t seen before. I think back to 2012 in Austin when the asphalt was new and the first sessions were very tricky." he recalled to Sky Sports.

“It’s also fun, but if you’re not able to generate enough tyre temperature that the tyres or the car start to work then it’s even worse than just being slippery.”

On his qualifying, the four-time world champion added: “It was tough, a tricky session, disappointed we didn’t make it through [to Q3] because even though it’s been slippery, we looked okay the whole weekend.

“In the end, it was purely just the grip you had or didn’t have. The tarmac is very slippery and if you are able to generate more temperature, you find more grip.

“I think we were on the cooler side today. A couple of degrees makes all the difference but we couldn’t find them. It felt like the extreme [wet] tyre was our weakest compound.

“Getting temperature into the tyres was our weakness at the beginning of the season. We brought upgrades to improve that, to warm the rims and thus the tyres more, but it seems we still need to improve there.

“But we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. It will be a difficult one, starting on the dirty side as well. I think the pace is better than P12 but I don’t know what the conditions are tomorrow.”