Ferrari will replace Charles Leclerc’s chassis for the Qatar Grand Prix after discovering a crack which the team believes was incurred during qualifying.
Leclerc was only able to qualify 13th, missing out on a place in Q3 by two-tenths of a second.The team confirmed in a statement after qualifying a crack had been discovered in the chassis which they believe was the result of Leclerc hitting a kerb during Q1. The chassis will be replaced and Ferrari believe Leclerc will be able to start from his original qualifying position.
Leclerc admitted he was confused as to why he was missing so much pace in comparison to his team mate, Carlos Sainz Jnr, who progressed into Q3 on the harder medium compound tyres. Leclerc was unable to accompany despite taking a second run on the soft compound tyres.
“This was definitely unexpected,” said Leclerc before Ferrari confirmed the chassis change. “If I am ever off the pace, I know if it was due to the balance not being right, or down to me making a mistake. But neither was the case today.
“I never felt that the tyres were in the right window and I was sliding around all the time, limited by the lack of grip. On top of that, the damage to the chassis caused by the kerbs in Q1 certainly didn’t help.”
“So I have to sit down with the team and carefully analyse all the data to see if something significant was not working properly or can be improved.”
He predicted a difficult race for the team on Sunday. “We have lots of work ahead of us, especially for our mechanics and it won’t be an easy race tomorrow. Hopefully we can take advantage of starting with a free choice of fresh tyres.”
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
20th November 2021, 21:31
That must have been one hell of a hit if it both cracked the chassis and caused apparently permanent amnesia of said hit in the driver.
Jere (@jerejj)
21st November 2021, 6:34
An automatic pit lane start since this got/gets done during Parc Ferme.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
21st November 2021, 12:29
Anytime you have track limits leclerc messes up.
I’m starting to think Ferrari have a really poor line-up. We know from past line-ups that Sainz has been handsomely beaten by all his team mates bar Kvyat who beat nobody. Leclerc now has beaten ericsson who was never good to begin with and vettel who can’t drive since 2014.
Leclerc is beating Sainz jr in a much less impressive way than Hulkenberg.
Reminds me how Bottas was not beating Massa by enough.
Richard Jones
21st November 2021, 13:55
zoom out……. what a comment! I am not surprise because as soon as you can you make such a n irreal comments on Sainz. This is not new from you but how can you say he was beaten by all his team mates except Kvyat, do you follow F1 or just want to lie everybody here. Sainz 2 – Norris 0