12/11/2022
NEWS STORY
Ferrari race director, Laurent Mekies explains team's qualifying blunder that has placed further stress on relationship with Charles Leclerc.
While the Monegasque is always the first to admit to his own mistakes, all too often it is the team that has let him down, and as has been witnessed several times over the last couple of seasons has to calm the youngster before his emotions get the better of him.
During Friday's qualifying Leclerc's emotions understandably rose to the surface once again, as the Maranello outfit continued its tradition of strategical blunders.
As the cars queued to head out for Q3, Leclerc was the only driver on Inters, the rest having opted for slicks (softs).
"Am I the only one on Inters," he asked, clearly surprised to see his rivals on slicks.
To compound his frustration, the team failed to call him in at the end of his out lap and instead left him out for another, meaning that by the time he finally pitted it was too late to make the switch to slicks.
"Did everyone complete a lap on slicks?" he asked.
"Yes, they did," was the reply.
"Unbelievable," he responded. "F****** unbelievable!"
"It's the sort of qualifying where you have to make a lot of calls," explained Laurent Mekies in the aftermath of a session that left Leclerc tenth on the grid for the Sprint having failed to post a time, "some of the ones we made today worked, some worked less well.
"It was a bit frustrating because we got both cars into Q3 and then we were confronted with a lot of choices. On one side you have the track still being dry, and there is a golden rule that says you should go for the tyres to suit the track if it is dry, but on the other hand we were expecting heavy rain immediately.
"At the end of the day, we have split our cars because you always know at that very moment that depending on the exact timing of the rain there is going to be one happy man and one not so happy man. And that is exactly what happened because the rain came a minute too late for Charles."
"We were expecting some rain that never came," said Leclerc. "I will speak with the team and try to understand what we can do better in those conditions. It's really disappointing, the pace was there.
"I accepted the decision to go on inters," he added, "and then I was just waiting for the rain that never came."
Check out our Friday gallery from Interlagos here.