Charles Leclerc and Ferrari will be glad that their Canadian GP nightmare came to an end on Sunday afternoon. A Q2 exit and a double DNF capped off a forgettable weekend for the Maranello-based outfit, and in the aftermath, the full extent of Leclerc’s struggles were revealed.
Leclerc started the race from P11 and made up a few places in the start in extremely wet conditions. But soon, it was evident that the 26-year-old’s SF-24 just didn’t have the pace. Italian journalist Giuliano Duchessa reveals that Ferrari’s power unit was the issue.
Il problema alla PU di Leclerc é costato una perdita di potenza fino a 80 cv per 15 giri https://t.co/ktlWbYLQNL
— Giuliano Duchessa (@GiulyDuchessa) June 9, 2024
Per Formu1a.uno, Leclerc was losing up to 80 horsepower for 15 laps, which lost him a significant amount of time. He started tumbling down the order and was eventually out of contention for fighting for points.
When the rain disappeared, Ferrari decided to gamble on Leclerc’s chances with a bold tire strategy. They put the hard tires on his SF-24 but rain came back, and Leclerc’s grip was gone.
With his car all over the pace, Leclerc, who was already a pit stop behind the race leader (Max Verstappen at the time), pitted for intermediate tires again. This effectively ended his race, as exited the pits almost a lap behind.
A few laps later, Ferrari asked Leclerc to retire the car, as they saw no point in him continuing driving at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Carlos Sainz follows in Charles Leclerc’s misery
Carlos Sainz was still appearing to be in contention for the points following his teammate Leclerc’s DNF. After the circuit dried up, Sainz fitted the medium compound tires and was charging up the field. Unfortunately, tragedy struck for the Italian stable.
He crashed while attempting an overtake, and took Williams’ Alex Albon out in the process. It ended Ferrari’s horror weekend altogether, as Sainz joined Leclerc in the garage.
A race to forget for the team. The entire weekend has been on the edge for us. I tried to push in the DRS train to overtake and did a mistake on the kerb. Sorry to the team and to Albon. We now need to understand what happened here and move on.
https://t.co/jZPsS7Hks2 pic.twitter.com/MZF6k7QpYM
— Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) June 9, 2024
The Spaniard admitted that he made a mistake, and apologized to his team and Albon for the crash.
Moving on to the Spanish GP (Sainz’s home race), the Madrid-born driver wants to understand what the problem with the SF-24 was in Montreal. They were winners in Monaco just two weeks ago, and on a weekend when they were expected to be favorites, everything fell apart.
