Charles Leclerc said he nearly gave up on the lap which earned him a place on the front row of the grid for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Conditions changed rapidly as the final phase of qualifying began at Interlagos. The skies darkened, temperature fell and wind picked up as a heavy rain cloud headed towards the circuit.The first spots of rain began to fall as the drivers completed their first laps in Q3. Leclerc said the sudden shift in conditions made his car handle very strangely. “I’ve never experienced that in my career,” said Leclerc. “The wind change was crazy.
There was just absolutely no grip from sector two onwards, which was extremely confusing because you had no idea where the balance will be in the corner you will get into. It made things very interesting, but luckily I kept it more or less tidy.”
Leclerc admitted he was “doubting” whether it was worth continuing and considered “coming in at the end of the lap,” but continued.
“It felt so bad that I was like, okay, this is not good enough. I’m P10 for sure, but luckily I wasn’t and second place is good.”
Max Verstappen, who took pole position, said his team were also encouraging him to continue despite the poor conditions.
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“We lined up to go out for Q3 and you could see the sky was just black and it was like, ‘well, if that rain hits, it’s going to be a lot’. So the out-lap was quite quick.
“Then we went for the lap, the first sector felt all right and then the rest of the lap felt shocking. I think what happened throughout the lap was the rain was coming in, it was not hitting the track yet, but the wind increased a lot and it changed direction to a tailwind in the middle sector. And the car was just sliding all over the place.
“I was shouting on the radio ‘what the hell happened, we are nowhere’. But the team just told me to keep pushing because they said everyone was struggling out there.”
Verstappen also said the conditions were extremely unusual. “I’ve never experienced something like that, such a big influence on car balance,” he said. “But you could also see the weather incoming was quite extreme.”
Lance Stroll took advantage of the changing conditions to claim his best starting position of the season with third place.
“Q3 in the end was really weird,” he said. “I think the conditions changed a lot, the wind changed so my lap was super-messy and lock-ups, missing corners, but in the end, good enough for top three.”
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2023 Brazilian Grand Prix
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Jere (@jerejj)
4th November 2023, 6:25
In hindsight, godd thing he didn’t.