Leclerc blames “weird” car behaviour for shock Q1 exit: ‘There’s something off'

The Monegasque, who was on pole in Barcelona 12 months ago, struggled for pace in the first part of qualifying and complained of car problems throughout the session. 

Leclerc was ultimately dumped out of qualifying with the second-slowest time in 19th. 

"I don't have the answer for now,” Leclerc said. “For now, the only thing I can say is that the left-hand corners were undriveable," he said.

"Through the right-hand corners the feeling was very similar to this morning, 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.”

Leclerc said he initially suspected the problem to be related to his first set of tyres, but realised that wasn’t the case after switching onto a brand new set of softs. 

"I thought it was the tyres on the first set, but then we went on the second set, and the feeling was exactly the same,” he explained. 

"I just had no grip in the left-hand corners from the rears, so we'll check the car well and I would be very surprised if everything was fine.

"Even in the tricky conditions of this morning, I was feeling really good with the car, so there's something off.”

Leclerc concluded: "I had so many moments and even during the first red flag I nearly lost it and put it into the gravel in a left-hand corner," he explained.

"This was just very, very weird behaviour, so we'll have to check the car."