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 by giving the Ferrari an unexpected result. In the end, however, it didn’t go as hoped, certainly due to an oversteer at the Spoon curve which partly nullified the effort in the first sector – where the Monegasque had obtained the partial record – and above all due to the management of power from the batterywho 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 fourth place on the starting grid and look at the rear of the two Mercedes and also of novelty McLarenoffered by a Oscar Piastri rather on the ball throughout the GP weekend Suzuka. However, there is no shortage of positive aspects, because Charles himself admits that it was practically impossible to do better: “The ride 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’s really frustrating. Even if you know it when you get in the car and expect that something like this could happen, when it happens… Punch the steering wheel. Here I also had a big straight, so I could have done quite a bit of damage, but I held back”, Leclerc joked, playing down to the microphones Sky.
“In any case – he adds – it’s very frustrating, because we can do so many things in the car, but once we are 100% with the accelerator pedal on a straight line at that point you can’t do anything anymore and when you see that you waste more time on a straight line than in curves 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 fairly delicate moment in turn 8, but in the end that section was very good. I tried, it went quite well, but being in fourth place is a disappointing result“. “In the race? I think we will be in a little bit better situation at least than McLaren. With the Mercedes, however, I think it will be difficult to battle”, concluded Charles Leclerc after qualifying for the Japanese F1 GP.
