Latifi ‘had no trust that the car was stopping’ as he reveals crashing into a groundhog

Home heroes Nicholas Latifi and Lance Stroll were both knocked out of Q1 at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Nicholas Latifi cut a dejected figure after qualifying for his home Canadian Grand Prix as he was eliminated in the first phase.

Latifi has beaten team-mate Alex Albon in knockout qualifying on just one occasion this year in Imola when the Thai-Briton’s brake caught fire, but Albon went on to beat the Canadian in the sprint race, so he has now out-qualified Latifi in all nine rounds of the 2022 season.

The 27-year-old also ended the wet final practice session nearly two seconds behind Albon, although he was not helped by the fact that he hit a groundhog, putting him on the back foot heading into qualifying.

Latifi struggled with a lack of grip on Wets and misbehaving brakes as he qualified P19, but will start 18th because of Charles Leclerc’s penalty.

“It was very tricky,” he said.

“It felt better in FP3 to be honest, we had a bit of a disrupted FP3 session.

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“I don’t know if it was picked up but I hit a groundhog straight on so we had to pit in the middle of – not in quali – but in FP3 to repair some damage and whatnot.

“Yeah, I just didn’t get that feeling in quali, I was having a lot of issues with the brakes, when already the grip was so poor.

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“The full wet tyres… I think no one wants to drive on the full wet tyres, you’d prefer to be on the Inters but the track conditions were not suitable for that.

“You don’t have the grip in the corners and then I had no trust that the car was stopping under braking and it wasn’t.

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“I think I ran deep [and] cut a few corners like maybe seven or six times, which is not great and just obviously disappointing.”

The 27-year-old is also not holding out hope for the race in dry conditions in front of his energetic home crowd.

“Obviously, it’s been a really cool experience just driving here on this grand prix weekend for sure, finally getting that,” explained Latifi.

“Tomorrow, I’m not really expecting much to be honest, I mean you never know what could happen ahead but we run our own race, our car is our car right now, that’s the pace.

“The pace is the pace so we have to obviously just be there to take any opportunities.”

Albon ended up in P12 as he escaped Q1 for the third time this season, putting himself in contention for his third points finish of the year.