Ferrari: Charles Leclerc crashes after a simple mistake: “What a shame”
Charles Leclerc’s rough patch continues; ever since extending his contract with Ferrari, he has been facing one problem after another. Following his poor performance and retirement in his home race at Monte Carlo, the Monegasque driver was the main source of drama during Saturday’s qualifying session in Barcelona.
Just as Q3 began, the Ferrari driver crashed into the wall at Turn 4 after losing control of his SF-26, which went into an oversteer following a simple driving error. The impact against the barriers was quite severe, at over 180 km/h, but Leclerc walked out of the cockpit on his own and was taken to the medical center for evaluation.
The Ferrari driver will have to start from tenth on the grid, even though he had shown in free practice that he was capable of at least third place, as well as having excellent race pace. His first words after qualifying were clear: “Right now I just feel ashamed; the car was good enough for pole. I was coming off several difficult weekends for reasons I know. This time we came into qualifying with a lot of changes and confidence; I was improving, and then this mistake happened. It’s a real shame because the potential to take pole was there. I tried to do something different in Turn 4; that had been our weak spot. In the other corners, we were the fastest of all—everywhere except Turn 4. There are no excuses; I’m so sorry for the fans. I’m optimistic about Sunday. I know I can come back, but at the very least I’d have to win to make up for what I did.”
Pole position for the Catalan Grand Prix went to George Russell with a time of 1:14.679, ahead of Hamilton on the front row and Antonelli in third. Rounding out the top ten are Norris, Verstappen, Hadjar, Piastri, Lawson, and Hulkenberg, ahead of Leclerc in tenth. It was also a rough day for Fernando Alonso, who will start last on the grid for the first time in his career without any grid penalties or technical issues, with teammate Stroll ahead of him for the first time.
