F1 | Leclerc: “I’m angry. We are slow, but I don’t know why”

After a Friday that ended with the sound of “we are competitive in all conditions”, Saturday at Ferrari turned into a day to forget, with a double elimination in Q3 with both of the two Ferrari drivers. The two Reds will therefore start from the sixth row, or from the eleventh and twelfth places on the starting grid.

Charles Leclerc did not hide his disappointment at the end of qualifying, not only for the disappointing result, but also for the lack of pace on a Saturday to forget since the morning, where the first difficulties had already emerged, which were then confirmed in the afternoon in tests officials.

Just like other teams, scrutinizing a possible arrival of rain, Ferrari decided to start Q2 with the used tyre, while other rivals followed the opposite approach, keeping the set of new soft tires for the final part of the heat. In fact, therefore, while others were able to count on a new tire at the end, the Maranello team had to take advantage of a used set to attack the top ten.

A choice similar to that of McLaren which, however, did not pay off as hoped for at Ferrari, leading to the elimination of both cars. In the case of Leclerc, the Monegasque had also proposed to stay out with the same set used in the first part of Q2, but from the pits it was instead suggested that he return to fit another used set, a choice then also approved by the driver.

“I have to look again, but the real problem is that every lap we did we were between eighth and twelfth. I’m quite angry because the first lap I did was quite early, I didn’t do it on the last lap, so it wasn’t very good. At the same time, I had a McLaren in the middle in Turn 10, we’ll see what happens. All put together, I think the result of this qualifying is just that we are not fast enough”, Leclerc explained to Sky, adding an important aspect, namely that of managing the final minutes.

“We were slow, we were slow all day. I had a sensor problem like this morning, which was very annoying, then the session management wasn’t the best. It was a tough session, I would say our main problem is that we have no pace, we are very slow in the dry, but we don’t understand why. It’s strange to go from an excellent weekend like the one in Monaco to being in difficulty here”, added Leclerc, referring to a problem with a sensor that he also had in the morning regarding the brake temperature, which however corresponded to a false alarm that the team gave him indicated to ignore.

Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Patrick Vinet / Motorsport Images

The Monegasque also spoke about the management of the last minutes, because some choices didn’t work as hoped. Given the possible arrival of rain at the end of Q2, there was some confusion about what to do: initially it was thought to do another additional preparation lap to warm up the tyres, but in reality Leclerc pushed, improving his partials, which, in fact, led him to do two consecutive hard laps. At that point the tire suffered, so much so that the Ferrari driver did not lower the time on the last attempt, when the track was in the best conditions.

At this point of the weekend, the objective is to maximize every opportunity available, because the starting grid position will not allow great opportunities should the track remain dry. The hope is that variable weather could open up some opportunities, especially with the risk of rain still real: “I’m confident that tomorrow’s race will be better and we can get a better result, but at the moment we haven’t shown it in the dry. We’ll see what the conditions will be tomorrow and we’ll try to maximize the result, it’s the main objective in races like these, to score as many points as possible, this weekend we weren’t very competitive, we’ll try to understand what we’re missing. The best thing we can do is focus on tomorrow,” added Leclerc.