The Formula 1 Qualifying session at the Imola GP caused trouble for all the drivers, especially for Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who only placed in P11. The Monegasque gave it his all for his team’s home race. Unfortunately, due to crashes and lengthy delays, his pace for Qualifying suffered. His teammate, Lewis Hamilton suffered similar disappointment. Neither made it out of Q2.
Furthermore, adding to the pressure, Leclerc is currently 5th in the Drivers’ Championship, at 53 points. Right on his tail with a five-point deficit is Kimi Antonelli, who qualified P13 for Sunday’s race and is sure to try and challenge the Monegasque.
A Qualifying to forget
After trying to maximise the car’s potential, Charles Leclerc had a disappointing result during the Imola GP Qualifying. The driver was absolutely devastated to be letting everyone down. He stated his frustration multiple times throughout the post-qualifying interviews:
“Honestly, I don’t even have a goal anymore. It’s just frustrating. I’m very disappointed with the performance at the moment.”
“I’m very disappointed, especially at home, at such a special Grand Prix for the team. It just hurts. It will have hurt anyway, whatever tracks, but here it hurts even more. I have no words about our performance today.”
This Grand Prix means a lot to Ferrari fans, who come from all over just to watch an Italian race. Not only did this failure to perform according to his expectations hurt, but Leclerc also gave out his apologies to the supporters:
“The only thing we can say is that we are sorry for this kind of performance at home and in general. We are just not good enough at the moment, and we’ve got to do better. Unfortunately, this is all I can say at the moment, and this is all we are trying to do, is to be better and to work in the right direction.”
Expectations for Sunday’s race
Despite the qualifying results, Sunday will be a new day at the Imola GP for Leclerc to redeem himself. However, the Monegasque was utterly let down by the team’s P11 and P12. Nevertheless, he remains slightly optimistic, stating he hopes to perform a “miracle”:
“I guess the only thing we can say is to be sorry for the fans that have done many, many kilometres to come and see us. And the best performance that we could give was an 11th and 12th place.”
“This hurts, but I hope I can do some miracles tomorrow, to be completely honest, for now.”
Yet, his confessions remained immensely truthful. When he spoke about the potential of climbing the ranks in tomorrow’s race, he restated his earlier admissions:
“There’s nothing that gives me hope for tomorrow’s race, just because I think the potential of the car is not good enough at the moment.”
The biggest problem, according to the Scuderia Ferrari driver, stems from the raw lack of performance:
“Just performance. We can do whatever with the balance, but at the end of the day, just the performance is not good enough.”
Some positives despite disappointment
Ferrari is supposed to bring out a set of upgrades at the Spanish GP. Therefore, despite the bad performance during the Imola GP Qualifying, there might still be hope for Leclerc and the team. Still, the Monegasque does not seem to see it that way. He believes that the Italian team can redress their issues, but that “the road is a very long one”:
“It has to be a freaking good upgrade if we want for it to be a turning point. Honestly, I hope that we will do a step in the right direction, but the road is a very long one ahead.”
Although the Imola circuit is not known for its easy overtaking opportunities, it is not impossible. In terms of race pace, Leclerc admitted to the fact that his Ferrari does show potential for a longer format:
“The race pace is strong, but on a track like this, it’s very difficult to overtake. We knew how crucial qualifying was going to be, and we didn’t do the job.”
Nonetheless, his strategy for tomorrow will be based on how the race starts out. Leclerc said a possible Safety Car might help him maximise his results, however, there is no “extreme” plan in the works:
“Yeah, I mean, not so much. I guess the right strategy is the right strategy for everyone. Whenever you go out of that way, you just hope for a safety car.”
“Maybe. But we’ll see how it goes. We’ll do the start and see where we are and take a decision from that moment onwards.”
“Race pace was strong, but we are starting P11. Apart from if something is happening crazy, it’s going to be difficult.”
Technical difficulties hinder Ferrari’s Qualifying at the Imola GP
Leclerc gave his opinion about the tyre compounds and the way they fared during the flying, qualifying laps around the Imola GP circuit. He used the C6, the softest tyres that Pirelli provided for this weekend:
“Very similar, I think, to the C5 at the end of the day. So it wasn’t a big difference from C5 to C6.”
Still on the topic of tyres, the Ferrari driver spoke about the struggles he faced in terms of tyre management and degradation. His problems, it seems, go quite far. Leclerc noticed his best lap was the one where he used scrubbed tyres:
“We could say that. Which has been a bit of a trend since the beginning of the season, so this is something we need to look at. But Q2, for example, I think I did my fastest lap on the scrub tyre. It’s also true that it wasn’t a proper scrub because I only had done one outlap. We’ll have to look into it.”
Lastly, seeing as the next round will be his home race, the Monaco GP, Charles Leclerc explained he does not see the issues getting solved by then. Looking ahead, the Monegasque seemed disappointed.
“I think so. I think Monaco is showing all the weaknesses of our car. So I think it’s going to be a very tough weekend for us.”
