Leclerc Furious: ‘This Was the Worst Weekend of My Career

Charles Leclerc has labeled his Canadian Grand Prix weekend as the absolute worst of his career.

The Ferrari driver qualified a disappointing eighth in Montreal, admitting he has spent the entire event fighting a completely unpredictable SF-26 that feels on the verge of crashing at every corner.

Tires and brakes trigger an operational disaster

While Lewis Hamilton managed to unlock significant pace from the sister Ferrari to secure fifth on the grid, Leclerc’s weekend has been a continuous downward spiral since the opening practice session.

The Monegasque has failed to find any rhythm on the low-grip Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, completely missing the correct operational window for both his mechanical and thermal setups.

“Honestly, it’s one, if not the worst weekend of my career. Since FP1, I haven’t had one lap where I could feel the car,” Leclerc explained during his post-qualifying media debrief.

“I just felt like I was going to put it into the wall in every single corner I do just because the tyres were completely out of the window today. The brakes yesterday that were not in the window as well. There was never, at any time, something that was just clicking and everything was right.”

While he avoided structural damage, his teammate’s contrasting pace has made the situation much more painful to process.

“But surely Lewis managed to do that throughout Qualifying and I didn’t. I’ll analyse on what I can do to be better in these kinds of conditions to just switch those tyres on, because it’s been really a nightmare so far,” the Monegasque driver pointed out.

Searching for answers before the lights go out

With McLaren making significant developmental strides and locking out stronger positions further up the grid, Ferrari faces a severe damage-limitation exercise during Sunday’s main event.

Leclerc is determined to dive deep into the telemetry to understand why his car feels so completely disconnected from his inputs.

“It’s strange but it’s the situation I find myself in at the moment and I’ve got to work on that. We’ll look into everything,” Leclerc stated.

“Honestly, for now, I just have a very strange feeling with the car so we’ll look into everything. Surely I can do better things, but it just felt very off.”

With heavy rain forecast to hit Notre Dame Island just in time for the race start, the unpredictable weather might offer the Italian squad a desperate lifeline to recover.