Today at 12:00
Charles Leclerc is puzzled by his slump in F1 qualifying
performances, a previous strength of his. The Ferrari driver is
regarded as one of the fastest drivers, if not the fastest, over a
single lap, and has 26 pole positions to his name - the most of any
non-world champion and equal 12th on the all-time list with Mika
Hakkinen. However, in grand prix qualifying sessions in 2025, he
has an average position of 6.3 and is without a pole since the 2024
Azerbaijan GP - his only P1 start in the last 21 races. Team-mate
Lewis Hamilton, whose own struggles adapting to Ferrari have been
well-documented, has out-qualified Leclerc at three of the last
four grands prix, and was 0.090s slower in the other, at the
Austrian GP. After qualifying sixth for the British GP, Leclerc
branded himself as "f**king s**t" after a poor final lap, with the
Monegasque explaining how the drop in performance on a Saturday had
him scratching his head. "I am not doing the job, and since the
beginning of the season, I have been performing very well in the
races," Leclerc told media, including RacingNews365. "There are
not many races where I would go back and change something I've done
inside the car, but unfortunately, when I look back at qualifying,
which used to be my strength, there are many times I would go back
and change something. "Every time I get to Q3, it is not clicking
at the moment. We've had good qualifyings, but not great
qualifyings, and this used to be my strength. "So I am not happy
with the level I am showing in qualifying. We've got issues." When
pressed about what the issues could be, Leclerc remained
tight-lipped, but did give some clues. "It is not a balance issue,
and it is not a grip issue," he said. "I don't want to go into
detail, but it is just something weird we've got to fight in the
car, and when it is in high-speed, it makes it even more difficult,
but I hope we can resolve it."
