Charles Leclerc always tries
Let it not be said that this time too Charles Leclerc did not try to throw his heart over the obstacle, giving Ferrari an unexpected result. In the end, however, it did not go as hoped, certainly due to oversteer at the Spoon curve which partially nullified the effort of the first sector – where the Monegasque had achieved the record split – and especially due to the battery power management, which once again betrayed him, sending him into a rage on the radio at the end of Q3.
The Monegasque’s frustration
In short, Leclerc has to settle for the fourth spot on the starting grid and watch the rear of the two Mercedes and also the new McLaren, offered by an Oscar Piastri who was quite on form throughout the Suzuka GP weekend. However, there are positive aspects, as Charles himself admits that it was practically impossible to do better: “The lap wasn’t perfect, but honestly I’m very happy. But I lost a lot of time on the straight compared to my previous attempts, and that is really frustrating. Even if you know it when you get in the car and you expect something like this might happen, when it actually happens… You punch the steering wheel. Here I also had a long straight, so I could have done quite a bit of damage, but I held back,” Leclerc joked, playing it down to the Sky microphones.
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“In any case – he adds – it’s very frustrating, because we can do many things in the car, but once we are at 100% with the accelerator pedal on the straight, at that point you can’t do anything anymore and when you see that you lose time more on the straight than in the corners, then it’s just super frustrating. In Q3 I don’t know what happened, but unfortunately I lost quite a bit of time from turn-14 to turn-16. But that’s how it is, apart from that it was a good lap, I had a rather delicate moment in turn-8, but in the end that section was very good. I tried, it went quite well, but being in fourth position is a disappointing result.” “In the race? I think we will be in a slightly better situation at least compared to McLaren. With the Mercedes, however, I think it will be difficult to battle,” Charles Leclerc concluded after the F1 Japanese GP qualifying.
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