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Charles Leclerc will start the Spanish Grand Prix on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from the pitlane after a P19 qualification during the session on Saturday (June 3). This development comes after the team decided to change components on the Monegasque's SF-23.
Leclerc was a victim of feeble pace during the qualifying session of the Spanish GP. He was able to qualify only P19, sandwiched between the two Williams of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon.
This came as quite a shock because Leclerc was the pole sitter on the track just last season. While his teammate still qualified for P2, there was something evidently wrong with Leclerc's car.
Charles Leclerc complained about the 'rear' of the car, perhaps an issue with the rear suspension or a failure in one of the mechanical components. With the risk of these issues worsening in the race, the team has decided to change his gearbox and other components.
As per the rules of the Parc Ferme, he will have to start the race from the pitlane, engrossing a lot of stress on his racecraft and Ferrari's strategy. Jock Clear, the senior performance engineer of the Scuderia, mentioned:
"We've taken the opportunity to change the gearbox, that's effectively all the backend, really to make sure there's nothing on there that is untoward."
No blame was put on the car's setup as Leclerc himself mentioned after his qualification that he was quite comfortable driving during the practice sessions and the issue only appeared during the qualifying session.
Charles Leclerc's teammate blames Ferrari's 'narrow working window' for the Monegasque's Q1 elimination
While Charles Leclerc will be starting all the way down from the pitlane, his teammate Carlos Sainz managed to qualify for P2, on the front row. The apparent competition he would have faced for the position was lowered since Sergio Perez couldn't make it to Q3.
Ferrari reflected quite contrasting performances between the two drivers. While Sainz's car was fitted with new visible upgrades for the weekend, Charles Leclerc's wasn't.
However, the former feels that it happened because of the 'narrow working window' that the car has, being hard to drive in the slightest change of conditions on the track. Sainz said:
"I don't know exactly what happened to Charles but it’s been the same story of the whole year. It feels like it’s a very narrow window for us; very narrow window for the car; very tricky car to drive."
"As soon as the conditions get tricky, it can go one way or the other and you’re fighting very different balances and it's a very fine line for me today."
