Charles Leclerc feels “something off” with his Ferrari car led to his Q1 elimination in qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Monegasque finished 19th but could well start from the back of the grid or even the pit lane should the Scuderia decide to make power unit changes.
But explaining the reason for his lack of performance, Leclerc revealed a quite peculiar problem.
“I don’t have the answer for now. The only thing I can say is that the left-hand corners were undriveable,” he told Sky Sports.
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“The right-hand corners, the feeling was very similar to this morning, but there’s just something off in the left-hand corners that we need to analyse and understand because it was very far off what I expected.”
Ferrari brought Barcelona a raft of new parts to Barcelona, including a change in sidepod design that team boss Fred Vasseur described as “opening some doors” to a new development path.
While there’s no suggestion Leclerc’s problem might be linked to that, he is almost certain an issue will be found.
“I thought it was the tyres on the first set, but then we went on the second set and the feeling was exactly the same.
?
A #Quali to forget for Charles.
The race is tomorrow, we’ll look into the issues and give it our best shot.#SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/6uXTxwlyPs— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) June 3, 2023
“I just had no grip at all in the left-hand corners from the rears, so we’ll check well the car and I’ll be very surprised if everything was fine.
“I had so many moments and even during the first red flag, I nearly lost it and put it in the gravel in the left-hand corner and this was just very, very weird behaviour, so we’ll have to check the car.
“Even in the tricky conditions of this morning, I was feeling really good with the car. So there’s something off.”
The good news for Ferrari is Carlos Sainz will line up second on the grid alongside polesitter Max Verstappen.