Saturday was not the day Charles Leclerc was hoping for at the F1 Miami GP as a tumultuous set of events hampered the Monegasque’s sessions.
After a mediocre start to his weekend saw himself 6th on Friday’s sprint qualifying, the Monegasque immediately got his sprint race shut down early as the worsening conditions on track caused his car to aquaplane and crash into the barrier.
Qualifying didn’t fare well either as he starts 8th coming into Sunday’s race, Behind the likes of Williams.
Leclerc ‘pays the price’ at F1 Miami GP
Speaking after qualifying, Leclerc expressed the fact that the moment the aquaplaning happened, there’s not much he could’ve done other than to watch the effects unfold.
He also stated that going out on intermediates on a wet track was a mistake that got Leclerc to that point.
“Well, in the sprint race, I have watched it quite a few times. Honestly, I can drive around 100 times and there’s not much you can do as a driver.
“I think the mistake was in the first place to be out on inter tyres with those track conditions. And this we need to understand what we’ve done wrong as a team. I won’t go too deep into that. But obviously, I think this was the main mistake that then costed us a lot.
“But yeah, obviously that made the whole day a lot more difficult for the mechanics. For me as well, not doing as many laps as others, but I don’t feel like I’ve paid the price of it today.”
Ferrari ‘just not fast enough’ – Leclerc on F1 Miami GP qualifying
Dejected, Leclerc expresses that they were just not fast enough in qualifying. Further stating that the car just did not like the track and that he had to make massive changes in order for him to get comfortable with the balance, to low avail.
“In qualifying, we were just not fast enough. We’ve got to analyse, there was something strange on our side. I had to change massively the car, the tools and everything in order to have kind of a balance I liked. But I went… Yeah, it was very different. So we’ve got to look into it to understand what happened there.
Asked if the car wasn’t at 100% after being rebuilt post-crash, the 8-time race winner said that there’s still lots of unknowns. Adding to it, he said that it’s unclear if the changes they made before qualifying had any impact towards the final product.
“I don’t want to say that for now. The mechanics have done an incredible job putting everything on. And to be honest, we’ve changed a few things on the car as well in terms of set-up. It’s unclear to me whether the set of changes had a much bigger impact than what I thought or whether there’s something off. But yeah, this will look tonight.“
Frustration is the clear theme
It seems like everytime Ferrari makes a change, it is to no avail. Charles Leclerc expresses the fact that they have to go through the same thing every race weekend.
“First of all, you’re having to make extreme changes. It’s starting to get a bit frustrating, I think, to go into the weekend and have to make extreme changes just to try and get something done.“
According to him, Miami in particular, says that he’s able to maximise the car’s potential. However the speed is just not there.
“But to be honest, this weekend I feel like, and that’s probably even more so frustrating, is that I feel we are maximising the potential of the car. It’s just that the potential of the car is just not there.
“When I finish a lap, again today in qualifying, I feel very satisfied with my lap. But it’s only bringing us whatever it is, P8s or something. So yeah, we’ve got to look at it.”
He also highlight’s a major weakness of the SF-25, it’s vulnerability in the low-speed corners. Albeit confident, Leclerc said that is the best lap he could’ve ever done in the car.
“I think a track like this also highlights our weaknesses. There’s a lot of low-speed corners. Williams, both Williams are in front of us. And I consider my lap a good one. So I think, yeah, it’s pretty easy to understand where we are lacking.“
