Charles Leclerc is confident Ferrari will find a problem with his car after dropping out in the first part of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.
On a damp but largely dry track, Leclerc was struggling throughout Q1 and was unable to progress despite using two new sets of soft tires to try and get out of trouble. After his first run, the Ferrari driver had told the team there was something wrong with the rear of his car, and although nothing was identified on the data at the time, Leclerc is still sure a source to his woes will be found before he lines up on the back row on Sunday.
“I don’t have the answer right now. We will have to check the data and most of all check the car because there was definitely something strange,” Leclerc said. “I nearly lost it during the red flag and I was at 70 km/h and there was just no warning.
“The left-hand corners were really, really bad with the rear right and I first thought it was the tires, so we went with a new set of tires and on the new set of tires it was the same feeling – right-hand corners really good, left-hand corners completely off. We will have to check, but I would be very surprised if we don’t find something on the car.”
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Leclerc says there were some changes made after FP3 but doesn’t believe they had an impact, nor does he blame being called to the weighbridge late in Q1 as contributing to his early exit.
“A tiny bit (was changed before qualifying), but as you always do. This is not the reason. It was not a setup thing. The setup was just a slight change and this was way too much of a difference from the left-hand corners to the right-hand.
“To be honest I don’t think (the weighbridge) would have made it any better. We were just completely slow and I was not even that surprised when they told me I was out of Q1.”
Starting 19th, the Monegasque is also unsure how much progress he’ll be able to make in the race, despite his teammate Carlos Sainz securing a spot on the front row.
“It’s going to be an uphill weekend, to be honest. On the other hand, it’s a track where we will see quite a few stops — degradation is going to be a big thing tomorrow — so if we do a good job on that we are going to improve our chances.
“For tire deg yesterday our race pace looked a little bit better than normal, apart from Red Bull which is in a league of their own. But let’s wait and see for tomorrow, because yesterday we didn’t know the fuel level of everybody, so it is very difficult to compare.”