Charles Leclerc was downcast after qualifying eighth on the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver told his team he was “completely off the pace” during the session and predicted he would either qualify eighth on the grid or crash in Q3. He duly qualified eighth.
After the session Leclerc described his weekend as “disastrous” and said he was struggling to develop confidence in his car.
“Honestly, it’s been one, if not the worst, weekends of my career,” he said. “Since FP1, I haven’t had one lap where I could feel the car.
“I just felt like I’m going to put it into the wall in every single corner I do, just because the tyres were completely out of the [operating] window today, the brakes yesterday were not in the window as well. So there was never at any time something that was just clicking and everything was right.”
Leclerc will start three places behind team mate Lewis Hamilton, who qualified a tenth of a second faster than him despite making a mistake on his final lap.
“Lewis managed to do that throughout qualifying and I didn’t, so I’ll analyse what can I do to be better in these kinds of conditions to just switch those tyres on because it’s been really a nightmare so far.”
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“It’s strange,” he added, “but it’s the situation I find myself in at the moment and I’ve got to work on that. We’ll look into everything.
“Honestly, for now I just have a very, very strange feeling with the car, so we’ll look into everything. Surely I can do better things, but it just felt very off.”
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur suspects part of Leclerc’s difficulties are due to the lower temperatures at the track this year.
“Charles has struggled a bit more than Lewis from the beginning of the weekend,” he said. “Yesterday it was a bit with the brakes and today was to put everything in temperature.
“I think it’s a challenge for everybody that conditions are colder than one year ago with the compound one step harder. It’s the challenge, but it’s not an excuse at all, because I think it’s difficult for everybody [like] this.”
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2026 Canadian Grand Prix
