“I have never experienced anything like this,” reports Charles Leclerc after qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix. The Monegasque took second place behind Max Verstappen, but emphasizes: “That was perhaps the strangest session of my career.”
In the third and final qualifying segment, all drivers drove significantly slower than before in Q2. Leclerc explains that “the last run in particular” was extremely strange. There was a “crazy” wind change and he had no grip at all.
“The wind changed completely, and even though it wasn’t raining, the grip changed completely. It was extremely difficult. We just had to guess where the grip was,” reports Leclerc, for whom second place was a “good surprise”. be.
Because he actually “thought about whether I should come in at the end of the lap” because his Q3 lap felt “so bad”. He thought he would be last, but actually it was “a good round” compared to the others.
In this case, the “others” also included his teammate. “We were unlucky with the weather. We were one of the last cars to leave the pits,” explains Carlos Sainz, who only finished the session in P8 and was almost a second slower than Leclerc.
There was a reason for that, however, because the last drivers on the track, including Sainz, were at a clear disadvantage because of the conditions. Sainz explains that he was “of course a little disappointed” because his pace in Q2 was “not that bad”.
“The later you drove, the slower the route was”
In fact, Sainz finished Q2 in P5 – ahead of Leclerc, who only finished seventh there. But in Q3 they missed the “chance” of a good lap because they got on the track too late. He then had to struggle with cold tires and low temperatures.
“The later you drove, the slower the route was,” shrugs Sainz. But even for Leclerc, who was out earlier, it was “very, very difficult in these conditions,” the Monegasque emphasizes again.
“Q1 was really good,” he reports and reveals: “The car felt great. We had changed quite a lot after FT1 and it was going in the right direction.” Leclerc initially finished Q1 in P3, and in Q2 he was seventh as already mentioned.
“Q2 was okay,” he emphasizes and explains that it was just a matter of setting a lap time that was “good enough” for the top 10 – which he succeeded in doing. When asked whether pole would have been possible in Q3 under normal circumstances, he replied: “I don’t know.”
“With the lower temperatures in Q2, we perhaps had a little more problems. So I don’t think it would have been enough for pole. But it would have been close,” said Leclerc, who, according to his own statement, still had a good starting position for that race on Sunday.
“On these sprint weekends there is always a big question mark behind the race pace,” he reminds us and explains that there is hardly any time for long runs in FT1, which is why predictions are difficult – especially since the race pace is still the Ferrari’s “weakness”.
“But I hope it will be a good race. Hopefully there won’t be too much rain tomorrow and Sunday,” said Leclerc.