Charles Leclerc’s day ended early at qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Ferrari driver watching the proceedings from a camping chair trackside after crashing out of Q3. He is slated to start the Grand Prix in ninth position.
The only thing Charles Leclerc wants to see in his rear-view mirror is Ferrari’s SF-23
After another tough qualifying session, Charles Leclerc admits he cannot wait to have a new car next year
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
Following qualifying, Leclerc told the media that he simply cannot wait to see the SF-23, Ferrari’s challenger for the 2023 season, behind him.
“It’s just a very difficult weekend,” Leclerc admitted to the media following his early exit from Q3. “Every time you get into the car not knowing what you are going to get is not a situation I like.”
During Thursday’s press conferences teammate Charles Sainz Jr. bemoaned the team’s lack of consistency this season. “I think it’s no secret that this year we’ve lacked like some consistency from the car. It’s very difficult to predict which circuits we’re going to be quick at and which we’re not going to be quick. I think the best example was the difference between Hungary and Spa,” said Sainz on Thursday.
“I think when you see our car we expected Hungary to be a good weekend, we expected Spa to be a weaker one, and it was actually the opposite, which just shows that there is maybe something intrinsic that we don’t fully understand and we cannot predict very well,” added Sainz during Thursday’s press conferences.
As Leclerc pointed out on Saturday, that inconsistency remains.
“The conditions in a way I think we’ve had plenty of times this year and I’m getting more and more comfortable and I’m okay with that too,” he said. “But it’s just a car this weekend which is extremely difficult to drive.
“In Formula 1 it’s all about anticipating and knowing what balance you are going to get once you get into the corner,” added Leclerc. “But at the moment I’m getting into the corner and I have zero idea whether I’m going to have huge understeer, huge oversteer, and that makes it very, very difficult for us.”
Speaking to the media on Friday the team’s Head of Chassis Development Enrico Cardile outlined that Ferrari is going to have massive changes for next year’s challenger. “For us, it is crystal clear what we did wrong with the car,” Cardile declared on Friday. “What the weaknesses are is clear – it’s not a matter of our understanding what we should do. Now for the future it’s a matter of delivering a good product where we cope with the targets we have. We know what we have to do, it’s a matter of doing, it’s a matter of finding the right contents of the car, the right architecture of the car to achieve the target.”
Told Saturday that changes were coming for next season, Leclerc expressed relief.
“Obviously I can’t wait but first I’ve got a season to finish in ’23. But we can only go another direction because at the moment honestly the car is really difficult to drive,” said Leclerc.
“It’s just very difficult to be on the limit,” added the Ferrari driver. “I think we are particularly struggling this weekend and even more so than what the balance would slow us down, just because we need to be so far off the limit because as soon as you get close to the limit, you just really don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s exactly what happened in my Q3 lap so it’s a difficult situation.”
Leclerc, as well as all Ferrari fans, will be hoping things improve, and quickly.
Because 2024 is a long way away.
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