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Charles Leclerc suffered from a “strange” engine problem in qualifying for Formula 1’s Mexico City Grand Prix and fears the race will be a “nightmare” if it is not resolved.
Seventh marked Leclerc’s worst qualifying performance of the season as the only three times he has started lower than his grid position for Sunday’s grand prix he has done so because of penalties.
Ferrari has had the quickest car in qualifying over the course of the season and Leclerc has nine pole positions but the F1-75 has lacked competitiveness at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Leclerc was two tenths slower than team-mate Carlos Sainz and even outqualified by Valtteri Bottas in the Ferrari-engined Alfa Romeo.
While Sainz’s own six-tenth deficit to pole indicates Ferrari was simply not on the level of Red Bull or Mercedes, Leclerc had his own specific problems.
“There was something strange or wrong with the engine,” he said after qualifying.
“I was losing quite a lot of time down the straights from FP3 to Q3, not compared to the Red Bull or Mercedes because this had been the case since FP1 and we knew it.
“But there was something strange and also the engine was not really responding to the throttle input I was having in the high speeds.
“I really hope we can fix those issues tomorrow otherwise it’s going to be an extremely difficult race to be consistent.”
Leclerc said the engine issue made it difficult to comment on the performance of the car itself because the balance was being affected at high speed.
The result was his “most difficult qualifying by far” and unless there is a solution for the race Leclerc is not optimistic for Sunday.
“It would not do exactly what I want with the engine so I would get surprised and then get a snap,” Leclerc said.
“If I still have the same issues then the race will be a nightmare, so I hope we can fix that.”
Leclerc admitted that Ferrari’s engine is also suffering at the high altitude Mexican track, where the turbocharger and MGU-H are worked harder while starved of oxygen compared to conventional circuits.
Sainz felt this played a part in Ferrari’s overall gap to the leaders although he felt Ferrari suffered a few different track-specific issues.
He hoped it will prove to be a “one-off” and said the car was so tricky at times that he could have gone two tenths quicker if he pieced together his best lap, and challenged the Mercedes cars – but this was not possible.
“Altitude shouldn’t affect us in terms of cornering speed,” he said.
“So, my guess is maybe something is going on with the tyres and probably also the engine.
“The altitude for this engine is not going exactly how we wanted, we knew before coming here we were going to need to make some compromises.
“And then tyres, and the car over kerb and bumps was just difficult to drive.”
The Ferrari looked particularly sensitive over the bumps in the high-speed Esses with Sainz and Leclerc having more issues than most in that section of the track.
“It was a fight,” said Sainz, when asked by The Race about this. “That’s why I couldn’t put a lap together. But yeah, we will dig deep.
“We shouldn’t get too discouraged. I think it’s a very particular track, a very particular scenario.
“We need to analyse what we could have done better around here and see if tomorrow the race pace becomes better.
“The race pace felt maybe the other way around this weekend, a bit better than the qualifying pace.
“With fuel the car settles down a bit. While in low fuel, you would see we’re a bit all over the place.
“I’m a bit more optimistic. The only thing is that to pass around here will be tricky.”
