Charles Leclerc eliminated in Q1 in Monaco Grand Prix 2019

Charles Leclerc eliminated in Q1 in Monaco Grand Prix 2019 due to major strategy error from Ferrari

Ferrari’s season from hell continues as the fastest man from FP3, the hometown boy, Charles Leclerc failed to Qualify for the Q2 after a terrible session all around for the team. Leclerc was chucked out of the top 15 by his teammate Vettel, who was having a terrible day and session of his own. Vettel crashed the front end of his car in Free Practise 3 and the team did fabulous work in getting the car ready for Qualifying.

But Vettel himself had a poor start to qualifying with a few off pace laps trying to set himself up after missing out on fp3. That left him needing a good lap towards the end and he ran into a lot of traffic unable to get a good lap. Then with less than 2:30 minutes left Vettel on a fast lap, brushed the barriers and had to quickly go on for a fresh pair of tyres as he sat in 17th position.

Vettel crossed the line with less than 10 seconds left on the session clock and while he pushed his car for a fast lap, Leclerc was the one who was on the clock. As the lower end of cars began their final laps, Leclerc sat in the 13th place. His own session had bot been great.

Charles Leclerc is out of qualifying and starts 16th for tomorrow’s #MonacoGP. A big blow for Ferrari.

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— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) May 25, 2019

He locked up on his fast lap and missed the barriers (the same one Vettel had crahsed into in fp3) by inches, and had to abort the lap. He then missed the weigh bridge on his entry into the pit and had to be pushed back into it to get his car’s weight checked.

There was still more than 5 minutes left after that, so Ferrari have no excuses for not sending him out again as the track conditions improved and cars in the bottom 5 started improving. Albon and Hulkenberg improved to push Leclerc to 15th and with the time coming to an end Vettel was the last man to cross the finish line and he went top of the list sending Leclerc down to 16th and out of Q2.