Ferrari: Charles Leclerc crashes after a simple mistake

Charles Leclerc’s rough patch continues; ever since he extended 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 focus of negative attention 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, in addition to having excellent race pace.

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 his teammate Stroll ahead of him for the first time.