Yahoo Autos Leclerc frustrated by PU issue as Ferrari suffers double-DNF
Charles Leclerc was left “very frustrated” by a power unit problem that was causing him significant performance as Ferrari failed to finish the Canadian Grand Prix with either car.
Ferrari informed Leclerc it could see a problem on the power unit even before he radioed back to ask about the car’s performance, and he was told to keep pushing despite losing time. A gamble regarding a pit stop for slick tires before a rain shower also backfired before Leclerc retired, with Carlos Sainz also failing to finish after spinning into Alex Albon later in the race.
“I could feel that I was 1.3 seconds slower in the straights,” Leclerc said. “That was the only thing really — the car was not going forward on the straights and I was just a passenger with that. I had so many different changes I had to do on my steering wheel in order to keep it at that level and not make it worse.
“But it was very frustrating because driving in those conditions it’s never super easy to do that on its own, and plus with what was happening on the engine it wasn’t great.
“I’m not sure yet [of the cause of retirement]. I think honestly considering the pace and everything that happened it was the right choice. Whether it was for the engine that was worsening, I don’t know.”
Despite a tough weekend for Ferrari where both cars also failed to reach Q3, Leclerc says he doesn’t feel there was any change in approach from recent rounds having won the previous race in Monaco.
“I think we were expecting to be in the mix, which was a surprise once we arrived in qualifying and it wasn’t the case. Coming into the weekend I said I think we’ve got to reset every time we come into a new weekend and that is exactly what we’ve done.
“Whatever happens in the weekend before, you have got to reset and cannot rely on the good performance of Monaco. So that didn’t mean we would have been flying like in Monaco — we knew it was going to be tough. We probably had a worse surprise than what it actually was in qualifying, and this is the thing I think we’ve got to look at.
“Obviously the main issue today is the engine issue and yes we have to really look at it, but all in all it’s been a frustrating weekend. Not really the pace we expected in qualifying and the engine issue in the race that we couldn’t come back from.”
