After severe setbacks and personal exhaustion, Charles Leclerc overcomes penalties and illness, ultimately fulfilling his lifelong dream this weekend alongside his brother.
Charles Leclerc experienced an emotional rollercoaster at the start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend. The Ferrari driver set the fastest time in FP1, was off the pace in FP2, and learned he would receive a ten-place grid penalty on Sunday after a battery change.
“This makes our weekend more difficult. Everything started yesterday; I had food poisoning, I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m so tired, I want to sleep now, it wasn’t easy, and even this morning I didn’t want to drive, but doing FP1 with my younger brother was today’s big motivation,” said Leclerc.
“It’s a dream that came true for both of us, for our family who came from Monaco to see this, and it was very moving. I put my helmet on very early because I was emotional, and that’s when everything started to go wrong!”
“When we started the car, we saw there was a problem with the battery, and so many things went through my mind. I wondered if I would be able to run with my brother, which was a unique opportunity.”
“And I thought about the championship because it makes our weekend much more difficult. But it doesn’t demotivate me; I already feel better this evening and I’ll come back tomorrow with fully charged batteries, no pun intended. I hope we have a good day tomorrow and that we can climb back up on Sunday.”
The Monegasque is worried about Ferrari’s ability to chase the world title: “Unfortunately, the McLarens seem faster! They have the upper hand, but it can change very quickly from one to the other, and we must remain in control of what we do. It won’t be over until the very end; we’ve had problems on our side, but I don’t wish that on anyone.”
He is also moved by parting ways with Carlos Sainz this weekend: “It’s another thing that adds to this weekend’s emotional highs and lows! We want to finish well; we ended this morning by watching FP1 together, and we were sad because we rely on each other to aim for the title, and we wanted to finish as well as possible.”
“But sometimes things are out of our control, and that’s what happened. Still, we’ve had an incredible relationship, four amazing years, and we will give it our all until the last lap to end these four years in the best possible way.”
Fred Vasseur, the Scuderia’s team principal, offers more insight into this penalty that will likely prove costly for the team in the championship.
“It’s not a surprise because we’ve been monitoring the situation over one or two events, and we knew we were at the limit. We made the decision before the start because we didn’t want to risk a retirement or even miss a session.”
“That’s the situation now. We need to focus on the weekend to try to make the most of it, including the penalty. We all need to do something great, hope for a McLaren misstep, but let’s focus on ourselves.”
“Even without the penalty, I think statistically it was difficult. Only once this season have we scored 21 points more than McLaren. That means it wasn’t easy from the outset. Of course, it’s even more difficult now with the penalty.”
“But nothing is impossible. Let’s focus on ourselves to try to get the best out of what we have today, to score the maximum points, and see where McLaren stands at the end.”
A second car shared by Sainz and… Leclerc!
Carlos Sainz could only drive in FP2, and he admits there is a lack of performance at the start of the weekend to take on McLaren: “This morning, Arthur Leclerc took to the track in FP1. So I got my first feel of the car in FP2, and it wasn’t too bad.”
“However, given the pace, we need to improve our performance if we want to fight at the front this weekend. We already have a few ideas, so we’ll work on them today and try them out on track tomorrow.”
Arthur Leclerc (photo below) was over the moon after his first FP1 session in Formula 1, during which he had the joy of driving with his brother: “It was incredible, I realize how lucky I am, and you just can’t describe how it feels.”
The Monegasque explains that he did groundwork to help Sainz get up to speed as quickly as possible in FP2. Asked about the advice he received from Charles, he explains that it wasn’t really brotherly advice: “Not really, more like team advice.”
“I was told it wasn’t my day, that we had to prepare for the weekend because we’re fighting against McLaren for the championship, so the most important thing was to prepare FP2 and Q3 with Carlos. And to gather information and make the setup options they wanted to give them as much feedback as possible.”
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Leclerc faces battery penalty, illness, lives own dream Leclerc faces battery penalty, illness, lives own dream Leclerc faces battery penalty, illness, lives own dream
Leclerc faces battery penalty, illness, lives own dream Leclerc faces battery penalty, illness, lives own dream
