04/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Charles Leclerc will start today's Spanish Grand Prix from the pitlane after Ferrari changed the rear end of his car.
Despite a raft of upgrades, the Monegasque driver could only qualify 19th, claiming his car felt "weird" and "undriveable", while teammate Carlos Sainz put his car on the front row alongside Max Verstappen.
"Through the right-hand corners the feeling was very similar to this morning," said the Monegasque after qualifying, "but there's just something off in the left-hand corners that we need to analyse and understand because it was very far off what I expected.
Taking on various new components including a new gearbox, energy store and control electronics, Leclerc was consigned to a pitlane start as the suspension set-up was changed from that used in qualifying.
"Qualifying on the back row has given us the unfortunate opportunity to look at a lot of things considering he was really uncomfortable with the car straightaway in qualifying, and had no confidence in the car," explained Jock Clear, the team's senior performance engineer.
"So we've taken the opportunity to change the gearbox, that's effectively all the backend, really just to make sure that there's nothing on there that is untoward.
"That should give him confidence again," he continued, "that whatever might have been in there that wasn't quite sorted is now sorted with a completely new back end.
"And as such, he will have to start from the pitlane, but he can do that with some confidence and we can hopefully get him back in the points.
"We might as well do everything we can do to minimise the cost of qualifying badly and take any advantages we can from yesterday's upset," added the British engineer.
Also starting from the pitlane will be Logan Sargeant, who qualified twentieth, as a result of the suspension setup and brake cooling having been changed from that used in qualifying.