Leclerc rues missed F1 Canadian GP pole chance

Charles Leclerc could scarcely contain his disappointment after qualifying only eighth for the Canadian Grand Prix, as the Ferrari Formula 1 driver believed he was in the fight for pole position.

On his final tour in Q3, the Monegasque was caught out by a snap at Turn 7 mere moments after setting a purple first sector, which he blamed on the dirty air shed by Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bulls machinery up ahead.

Leclerc thus abandoned the lap, ultimately ending the running in eighth place once the final flurry of laps were registered.

Despite suffering an FP1 crash on Friday at Turn 3, which counted him out of participating in FP2 owing to the need to replace his survival cell, Leclerc stated that the crash had genuinely had little impact on his weekend and that he was comfortable from the get-go once FP3 began.

“[Was qualifying] impacted in any kind of way from yesterday? Zero. From FP3 from the first laps, I felt good, so I regretted nothing,” Leclerc explained.

“I basically didn’t change the car since my three laps in FP1, because I was happy with the car.

“I’m just very, very disappointed with Q3 because I think that the beginning of the lap was worth, or at least good enough, to be fighting for pole position and we are now starting P8, so very disappointed with that.”

Midway through his post-session comments to media, Leclerc briefly ducked out to speak to Hadjar in the pen – before returning to explain what he’d said. He added that although he was affected by his wake, he could not apportion any blame to the rookie.

“It was [Hadjar’s dirty air]. I mean, we are going to look back at the data,” he said. “On a track like this with the walls, it’s like Monaco, it’s like some other tracks where it’s always trickier with the dirty air.

“Obviously emotions are running high when you are in the car. I don’t think he’s done anything wrong, but we know how it is. Sometimes depending on where you are catching a car, then this can have a big influence on the lap.

“It had a huge influence on me. I just wanted to obviously warn him what I said in the car, that I was quite angry, but there’s nothing wrong with what Isack has done.”

Despite qualifying lower than he had hoped, Leclerc said he felt he could still target a podium finish in Sunday’s race at Montreal. He stated that those chances were entirely dependent on whether he was able to make swift progress early on.

“I want to target the podium,” he added. “But it all depends on how quickly we are going to get past the others.”