Charles Leclerc said he asked his Ferrari team whether he should do another run before he was eliminated in the first stage of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver was knocked out in the first round of qualifying by his team mate Sebastian Vettel, who had gone out for a final run.“I asked whether they were sure,” Leclerc told Sky. “They told me we think we are [safe]. And I said shouldn’t we get out again.
“But there was no real answers. I don’t know, I didn’t have any explanation yet in detail but a very difficult one to take.”
Leclerc failed to stop at the weighbridge when indicated to and had to be pushed back to it. But he said he still had time to do a final run despite this interruption.
“We had plenty of time even when we went out of the box to go out again,” he said. “The weighbridge was not the problem, we still had the fuel to go again and only change tyres. No, this was a problem. I need some explanations, I don’t know for now.”
The home driver said he is prepared to take risks in tomorrow’s race to make his way forward from 16th place on the grid.
“Hopefully [it’ll] rain and then there will be a bit of a lottery there. If it’s dry it’s going to be boring.
“I’ll have to take a lot of risks I think, even risking to crash, but at the end that’s the only thing we need to do now is to try and be extreme in our overtaking because this is a track where it’s basically impossible to overtake.”
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Chaitanya
25th May 2019, 14:59
He should know by now, he is not their no. 1 priority.
Hugh (@hugh11)
25th May 2019, 15:03
Ferrari strategy. Again. Yikes.
Jere (@jerejj)
25th May 2019, 15:04
What a mess at Ferrari.
Green Flag (@greenflag)
25th May 2019, 16:04
They should hire Claire Williams, she’ll get them winning again in no time at all.
David BR (@david-br)
25th May 2019, 15:10
The creativity being applied at Ferrari to mess up this year is astounding.
Todfod (@todfod)
25th May 2019, 15:30
They are hands down the worst team on the grid.
There are teams that cannot be competitive due to financial or human resources… there are teams that have not gotten the car design right… there are teams that have not nailed operations yet.. there are teams that are struggling with tyres… and there are teams that struggle on consistency of form…. But, Ferrari struggle in every area every race weekend.
David BR (@david-br)
25th May 2019, 15:43
@todfod Worst coordinated without doubt. Under that aero design mistake they probably have the best car (engine and chassis). Over the season they could feasibly get back into contention. But these strategy errors are huge, along with the mistakes they’ve made in prioritizing Vettel in early races. Vettel did well today I thought, but he’ll be on his own in the race, making race strategy a lot more difficult for them. Ferrari are just throwing the championship away this year after 2 years of keeping a battle going with Mercedes at least until halfway.
TheLifeofBrian
25th May 2019, 16:22
Well that’s the really scary part for them. I’ve been following F1 for many years and typically Ferrari is out-developed by other top teams over the course of a season. For them to have a chance at winning one of the championships they need to get out to a great start and hope the other teams don’t catch them. It is looking like for sure they will finish P3 in the constructor championship as Red Bull will pass them and no higher than P4 in the driver’s championship.
LosD (@losd)
25th May 2019, 17:45
@david-br Well, under their aero design mistakes, _every_ team has the best chassis.
Ajaxn
25th May 2019, 15:13
This is all about planning… and Ferrari’s lack of it.
There should be someone in the Ferrari camp thinking – ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ and then making team suggestions from that perspective.
In this case the worst thing is not to make it out of Q1. Leclerc had the added preassures home track plus visiting royalties to disrupt his normal mental preparations. He then goes out with that extra impetus to do well and ends up over-cooking the lap.
There should have been someone close to him to recognise the situation before it happened, to get him to focused, and treat this home qualifier incrementally, one meassured step at a time.
Leclerc can only learn from this…
Chris (@chrisgalaz)
25th May 2019, 15:28
Vettel crashed once and brushed the wall three times in one day and you think that leclerc was not focused? He led P3 and he was faster than seb in q1… until they forgot him at the garage odviously
mmertens (@mmertens)
25th May 2019, 17:06
Yes, this is at Ferrari to blame, not Leclerc. Seb did a messy qualy as well.
Foggy
26th May 2019, 1:16
This was another Ferrari screw up and 100% the fault of their pathetic team management. If they continue like this they will have lost another WDC and constructors title before mid season and ruin Leclerc into the bargain .. they really are becoming a joke and the Ferrari hierarchy need to take a long hard look at the team management structure and put someone competent at the helm, lets face it they continually messed up under Arrivabene and continue to do so under the leadership of Binotto.
JohnBt
25th May 2019, 15:22
What an awful feeling for Charles.
Once again Ferrari messed it up, seems like a norm for them, crazy!
Let’s hope for rain somewhere during the race to spice it up.
Martin (@ardy)
25th May 2019, 15:23
What were they hoping to gain by Leclerc not going out?
Someone should know the typical delta between Run 1 and Run 2 of drivers below Leclerc and be able to work out he is in the drop zone.
Ivan (@wpinrui)
25th May 2019, 15:28
I wouldn’t hope for rain if I were Charles… Ferrari would put him on softs in a downpour… or full wets as the rain stops
F1 Codger
25th May 2019, 15:28
Ferrari theme song ’50 ways to leave your driver’ (in the lurch).
AMG44 (@amg44)
25th May 2019, 15:33
Even for non Ferrari fans this was hard to take. Was cheering for Lec to do well at his home race but Ferrari (and Vettel) blunders continue…
NeverElectric
25th May 2019, 15:49
Don’t see how Leclerc will be happy to remain at ferrari when – or even before – his contract runs out.
He’s run out of patience.
Chaitanya
25th May 2019, 16:02
Now think how hard it was for Alonso to stay at this team and outperform the car for 4 years and not utter a bad word about the team to this day. Yet loudmouth Marchionne threw insults at Alonso at every chance he got. This is the worst team in F1 ever an overglorified midfield team at best.
F1oSaurus (@)
25th May 2019, 16:43
I really wonder how they will fare once a budget cap is in place.
Although they spend even more money for this season and it hasn’t really helped them much yet. Well the car is fast, but results are not really coming due to all the blundering.
Chaitanya
25th May 2019, 17:00
Seems like they have chassis/aero issue and they tried to fix it with PU upgrade and then brought aero updated to Monaco. I suspect (if those budget caps are set in place) this team like giants of yesteryears(McLaren, Williams) will fall by wayside quickly and teams who did a brilliant job on shoestring budget will flourish once again.
CareyPatrick (@careypatrick)
25th May 2019, 17:14
Screaming at the TV once again did nothing, and Ferrari didn’t send LeClerc out. I’m starting to think my “smart tv” investment was a huge waste of money!
/s
Really though, I can’t believe they messed this up so badly. A shame for Charles.
F1 Codger
25th May 2019, 17:27
It must be Baldriccio who is responsible for Ferrari’s Cunning Plans.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
25th May 2019, 18:06
This year’s Ferrari team is managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory better than any team I can remember in any sport.
they’ve got a great car, great drivers, and all the resources in the world, yet every weekend they find a new more creative way to screw it all up.
NeverElectric
26th May 2019, 0:03
How would ferrari fare in f1 without the lopsided, unfair sweetheart financial deal that sees them receive massive sums of prize money regardless of their actual performance in the constructors race?
I think they’d sink without that deal. They are clearly too chaotic to win the title again – and even the 2007 season was gifted to them thanks to the chaos at McLaren.