The opinion of the Ferrari driver
Charles Leclerc at the end of qualifying for the Japanese GP he was quite clear on the radio to underline his disappointment towards the 2026 F1 with which it is impossible for the drivers to push to the maximum not even in the qualifying lap, a discipline in which the Monegasque has always been a caliph.
The Ferrari driver’s opinion on the 2026 F1 changes when it comes to judging the current single-seaters in the race dynamics, defined as highly spectacular by the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. The first episode of also occurred in Japan accident caused by the difference in speed between a car in the ‘charging’ phase and one launched at full power and Leclerc responded thus in the press conference at the end of the GP when he was asked to give an overall opinion on this generation of cars which completed the first three GPs of the season on very different tracks.
“With these cars we have to race differently, there’s no doubt about that – Leclerc’s words – and certainly the issue of superclipping is something that must be taken into consideration, more by the defending machine than the attacking one. I learned this the hard way in Australia, there were several complicated situations in the duel with Russell. If we have to change everything for the race I don’t know, I don’t think I’m the only one who doesn’t think so, I talk to all the riders and I’d say we’re pretty split in half. As for the race, I like these cars, I think for qualifying there are definitely some changes we need to make to be able to push these cars to the limit and not have to think too much about energy.”
