Charles Leclerc was left to rue the “unpredictable” nature of his car after Qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with the Monegasque taking P9 in his Ferrari amid challenging mixed conditions.
A wet track made for a difficult Qualifying at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit and Leclerc was amongst those to face struggles during the session, leaving him to reflect on how his car appears to find such conditions particularly tricky.
“Unfortunately it’s not [just] today,” the 28-year-old said afterwards. “It’s been like that since I… since I joined the team we’ve been struggling massively at finding the grip in those kinds of conditions.
“It’s hugely frustrating because it’s probably been my biggest strength in the junior categories, and then… We are doing something wrong – I have no idea what that is because we’ve turned the car upside down.
“We’ve had Lewis [Hamilton] and obviously Carlos [Sainz] before that also join from other teams that will tell us the feelings they had with the other cars. It’s just extremely difficult to find the grip with our car, and very, very unpredictable as well which causes us to do a lot of mistakes.
“It’s not that we are not trying because with the team we’ve tried absolutely everything, but for some reason we haven’t found our way yet.”
Asked if this means that he always expects a difficult time when faced with conditions like those seen in Las Vegas on Friday night, Leclerc responded: “You always go in the car with the most neutral mind as possible, without thinking too much about what could go.
“We’ve had some few positive surprises sometimes, but for some reason whenever we thought we had understood something we were proved wrong the session after in the wet.
“I don’t think about it, but as a matter of fact when you finish the sessions and do a step back on the overall picture in those conditions, it’s not a bright one.”
It was a tough day all round for Ferrari, with Hamilton exiting at the back of the field in Q1.
