Nightmare in Canada: Leclerc Faces Swift Exit

Charles Leclerc’s race ended abruptly in Canada, marked by technical failures and significant time losses.

Charles Leclerc withdrew in Canada, just two weeks after securing victory at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver expressed his disappointment following poor qualifying and an engine issue that dashed his hopes early on.

“It was a nightmare from start to finish; I’m not sure what the problem was. We had an engine issue right from the first laps, losing 1.2 seconds on the straights. It persisted until the pit stop where we switched to slicks while the track was still too wet,” Leclerc stated.

“We had to take risks because we were going to finish out of the points as we were losing 20 or 25 km/h on the straight. I did a reset during the stop, and miraculously it worked. But then there was very inconsistent torque when coming out of corners, making it impossible to drive. But in any case, it was over after the engine problem.”

The Monegasque is not overly fearful about this mechanical failure affecting the rest of the season: “I’m not necessarily worried about the rest of the season, but we need to analyse what happened. On every straight, the team asked me to change settings, but it made no difference.”

Frédéric Vasseur, Scuderia’s team principal, elaborated on Leclerc’s issues: “The reasons for Charles are multiple; we lost engine control and were dropping 80 kW every lap. We had to stop and restart the engine; the race was lost.”

“It’s quite tough, we’re a bit shocked, but the silver lining is that Charles’ pace, despite the engine problem, was good; he was in the pack. But to score no points on a weekend like this is hard.”

Vasseur is now focusing on how Ferrari will bounce back after this double withdrawal, acknowledging that Carlos Sainz presented some additional complications due to misunderstandings.

“The most important thing is to understand what happened, to address the issues one by one and see what can be done. We need to understand the engine failure; Charles is not at fault. With Carlos, there’s more to debrief as his pace wasn’t magical, and it remains to be seen whether he was held back or not.”