Charles Leclerc said he was “very disappointed” to qualify fourth on the grid for his home race after struggling with his car’s brakes.
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The Ferrari driver took fourth on the grid, three-tenths of a second slower than pole-winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli. He will share the second row with teammate Lewis Hamilton, who out-qualified him by seven hundredths of a second.
Leclerc said he was still experiencing the same braking problems that affected his car in the previous race in Canada and hopes Ferrari will have a solution for next week’s round at the Circuit de Catalunya.
“I’m very disappointed,” he said. “It’s been an incredibly tough weekend.
“It has been an incredibly tough last two weekends with quite a lot of issues on my side. I’m pretty confident we’ll have a solution for next race.
“So far it’s been very, very tricky. The fact that, on braking, I just don’t really know where to brake getting to Q3 after [three practice sessions] makes it very tricky for me.”
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Leclerc abandoned his first Q3 run after making a mistake at Massenet. He then set the fastest time on his next lap, but on his final attempt he hit the wall at Tabac.
He said the last error was not solely caused by the braking issue but by “a combination of things.”
“I think today it’s a bit more than only me. Just as a team, and on my side of the garage, it’s been a very messy weekend.
“We’ve had a lot of issues in Q3 as well. Probably nothing that people realised but I had to go out of the [pit] box much earlier, there was a bit of mess in the garage, but then luckily we kind of got back onto the track.
“I knew I had two laps, I tried everything on the second lap, but I didn’t finish the lap and that’s it.”
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