Charles Leclerc had the dubious honor of causing the first red flag of the weekend on Friday in Montreal. The Monegasque driver crashed his SF-25 early on, preventing him from completing any more laps for the rest of the day. His teammate, Lewis Hamilton, was able to continue, but concluded that reaching Q3 during the qualifying round would be ‘a challenge’.
The weekend in Montreal did not start well for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque driver quickly caused the first red flag situation of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend due to his crash in FP1. Leclerc braked too late for turn 3, went over the grass, and slammed into the barriers. His SF-25 suffered significant damage, forcing the Monegasque to sit out FP2. The Ferrari driver had no choice but to apologize to his team.
“It was a very stupid crash,” Leclerc reflected in an interview with F1TV. “I had a lock-up, I thought I would make the turn… Then I knew I was going to go into the grass, but I thought that would be enough to avoid hitting the wall. Unfortunately, when I ended up in the grass, I realized there was no more room. It was simply a misjudgment, but a costly one at that.”
The way the Monegasque driver ultimately hit the wall caused such damage to the chassis that a new one is needed for his SF-25. Unfortunately, a driver is only allowed to use one chassis per day. Therefore, Leclerc had to sit out the rest of Friday. “That hurts, because it obviously cost us a good number of laps today, but the positive is that I felt very confident with the car,” the Monegasque continues. “I think we were very competitive at that time, for what it’s worth, because it was only the third fast lap of the day.” The Ferrari driver expects to be able to push again during qualifying.
‘Difficult to get into Q3’
Teammate Lewis Hamilton is somewhat less confident than the Monegasque, after seeing his own SF-25 slow down between FP1 and FP2. “I think FP1 was good, then we made some changes. Honestly, I thought the car was faster and we just slowed down, or our rivals sped up.” Hamilton clocked the fifth fastest time during the first session, while he did not get higher than eighth place in FP2.
As a result, the Brit has less confidence in the qualifying than Leclerc. “I don’t know what’s possible,” Hamilton adds. “I think it will be a challenge to get into Q3 at this pace, but not impossible. After that, I think it will be difficult to get into the top five.”
