Charles Leclerc was convinced after qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix that something was wrong with his SF-23, to the extent where the Monegasque admitted that it was showing “very weird behaviour”.
12 months on from claiming a magic pole position at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Leclerc will start Sunday’s seventh race of the 2023 Formula 1 season from the tenth row of the grid, following an embarrassing Q1 elimination.
Leclerc will start 19th on Sunday having failed to make the most of the circuit rapidly evolving, with him having labelled his car as “undriveable”.
The 25-year-old’s disbelief was clear over the team radio, as the chequered flag brought an end to Q1 and Leclerc’s Saturday afternoon.
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“Unbelievable,” Leclerc simply said over the team radio, when informed he’d qualified P19.
Should there be something wrong with his car, then the likelihood is that Leclerc will start Sunday from the pit-lane, as a result of changes being made to his car outside of parc ferme.
Despite this, he should feel confident of recovering at least some points, with him having felt “very good” in the car during Free Practice 3.
For now, Leclerc isn’t sure why the car was so bad, with him being keen for the Italians to “check the car” for faults.
“I don’t have the answer for now. The left hand corners were undriveable,” Leclerc said following his Q1 elimination.
“There’s something off in the left hand corners that we need to analyse and understand it was very far off what I expected. I thought it was the tyres on the first set, but I went on to the second set and it was exactly the same.
“I will be very surprised if everything is okay. There was some very weird behaviour, we’ll have to check the car. Even this morning I was feeling very good with the car, but there was something off here.”
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Leclerc’s Q1 elimination somewhat sums up the season he’s having, with nothing seemingly going his way.
Ferrari clearly did have pace on Saturday as proven by Carlos Sainz, who secured second on the grid for his home race.
Based on this, it does suggest that Leclerc did have an issue with his car, something which will likely be revealed on Sunday ahead of the race.