03 June 2023 , 14:32
1299
0
Charles Leclerc had only one word to say to his Ferrari team as it was confirmed that he had qualified only 19th for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Ferrari were slow out of the garages at the start of the session despite the threat of rain on the outskirts of Barcelona. Practice earlier on Saturday had been a soggy affair but, by the start of qualifying, the circuit had dried up somewhat.
Still, most other teams were keen to get a time on the board as quickly as possible with more dark clouds looming. But not Ferrari – and that came back to bite them a little as an early red flag meant other teams had times on the board while Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had yet to do so.
So they were playing catch-up as the track evolved. And, as the drivers completed their final runs in Q1, the lead was changing hands every few seconds as drivers crossed the line to set their fastest laps of the session.
While most others were finding improvements, including Sainz, Leclerc struggled and only managed to go ninth fastest when he crossed the line for the final time. With half the field still to complete their laps, it seemed inevitable that it would not be enough for the Monegasque to survive the cut.
Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"
And that proved to be the case as, by the time everyone had taken the chequered flag, only Logan Sargeant was below him on the timesheets. After having it confirmed over the radio that he had qualified 19th, Leclerc simply responded: "Unbelievable."
Leclerc's displeasure was obvious (Sky Sports)Unsurprisingly, he sounded very irritable as he faced the TV cameras as the rest of the session continued. Leclerc said: "I don't have the answer for now. The left hand corners were undriveable.
"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."