A frustrated Charles Leclerc said Formula 1’s new regulations discourage drivers from pushing flat-out in qualifying.
The Ferrari driver fumed on his radio after taking fourth on the grid for Sunday’s race. “I honestly cannot stand these rules in qualifying,” he said.
“It’s a fucking joke. I go faster in corners, I do on throttle earlier, fuck’s sake I lose everything in the straight.”
Leclerc said the new rules amplify any disadvantage caused by a slight steering correction, meaning drivers are penalised for trying to drive their cars to the limit.
“It’s very frustrating because coming [into] Q3 – at least myself and that’s how I approached qualifying since forever – you go into that last lap and you try things that are a little bit above whatever you’ve tried before,” he explained. “And when you do that, the system needs to re-optimise everything while you are driving, basically.
“So, for some reason, whenever I get to Q3, I start losing time in the straights. So I make time in corners, I lose time in straights, and this is very frustrating because you never really put a lap together because you’re always compromising one thing for another.”
“I think for everybody, going into Q3 is just not the nicest feeling,” he told Sky, “because we want to be at the limit of those cars and whenever you play with those limits, not only you pay the price of a small snap, but you also pay triple the price in the straight.
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“This is very frustrating because qualifying is all about us trying to find the limit and to play with the limits, and at the moment whenever you play with the limit you get destroyed in the straights.
“So you’ve got to stay right underneath it, which is an art in itself, and all the good drivers need to make the difference anyway, but I think it’s less rewarding for the drivers that like to really push over it. Most of the time in Q3 that’s paid off, but not with these cars.”
He suspects Ferrari’s power unit is particularly susceptible to the problem and hopes the FIA will make changes to the rules for future races.
“It’s a little bit frustrating, but it’s the way it is for everybody,” he said. “I feel for some reasons that we are a little more exposed to that compared to maybe the Mercedes engine which is something that we need to look at. I also know that the FIA is obviously trying to understand what are the things we can do to fix those issues going forward, because it’s still something that everybody has.
“Apart from that, I was actually very happy with my lap. I had a moment in turn eight but actually this didn’t have any implications in whatever I have had later on, like engine, power unit-wise, it didn’t have an influence.”
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2026 Japanese Grand Prix
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