Charles Leclerc is experiencing ‘the worst race weekend of my career’ in Canada. The Monegasque lost the qualifying duel to his teammate Lewis Hamilton for both the sprint and the main race, and will start the Grand Prix just inside the top ten from eighth place. For Leclerc, the SF-26 has felt off throughout the entire Canadian race weekend: ‘I just have the feeling in every corner that I’m going to hit the barriers’.
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Of the optimism Charles Leclerc still felt after the sprint race in Canada, little remained after qualifying. The Monegasque just managed to secure a spot in the top ten with eighth place on the grid, while teammate Lewis Hamilton starts the race from fifth. Leclerc does not mince words.
Before qualifying, it was mainly the brakes that caused problems for the Ferrari driver. “The brakes actually felt better during qualifying, which makes this weekend even more disastrous. It’s one of the worst, if not the worst weekend of my career,” Leclerc concluded after qualifying in an interview with F1TV.
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The Monegasque also immediately explains why: “Since FP1, I haven’t had a single lap where I could really feel the car well. I just have the feeling that in every corner I’m going to hit the barriers. The tires were totally off today. The brakes were also off yesterday. There was never a moment when something just clicked.”
Nightmare
That his teammate Lewis Hamilton managed to get into the top five during qualifying does not surprise Leclerc. The Monegasque had already said that the world champion is stronger at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. “Lewis did manage to put everything together during qualifying and I didn’t. I will analyze what I can do to be better in these conditions and how I can get those tires working. So far it has really been a nightmare,” said Leclerc. “For now, I have a very strange feeling about the car. It just felt very wrong.”
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Read everything about the GP Canada here
