Charles Leclerc will start the Spanish Grand Prix from the pit lane as Ferrari will make changes to his car following his issues in qualifying.
Leclerc was eliminated in Q1 after telling the team it felt like something was wrong with the rear of his car, admitting he wasn’t surprised at the lack of performance on Saturday. Ferrari was unable to investigate if there was any root cause thoroughly prior to the race so performance engineer Jock Clear says the gearbox and other components on the rear end will be changed to give Leclerc a better chance of recovering through the field in Barcelona.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“Obviously qualifying on the back row has given us the unfortunate opportunity to look at a lot of things and consider he was really uncomfortable with the car straightaway in qualifying, and had no confidence in the car,” Clear said. “So we’ve taken the opportunity to change the gearbox. That’s effectively all the backend, really to make sure that there’s nothing on there that is untoward.
“We’ve not had an opportunity to look at it yet, because time doesn’t allow you to do that with parc ferme as it is. In fact we haven’t even changed the gearbox yet, we’re in the process. But that will go back to the factory and we’ll check it.
“The thing for him this afternoon is he’ll have a new back end on the car, so that should give him confidence again that whatever might have been in there that wasn’t quite sorted is now sorted, completely new backend, and as such, he will have to start from the pit lane. But he can do that with some confidence, and we can hopefully get him back in the points.”
Clear also says power unit components could be changed ahead of the race, but that other parts that will be of different specification or set-up are the reason for the pit lane start rather than 19th on the grid.
“We’ve taken the opportunity to make some changes. Once we’re at the back, we might as well do everything we can do to minimize the cost of qualifying badly, and take any advantages we can from yesterday’s upset, really. So we’re taking the choice to go from the pit lane.”
Leclerc technically doesn’t lose a position as Logan Sargeant – who qualified 20th – also starts form the pit lane after making similar suspension set-up changes as well as to the Williams brake cooling.