Ferrari pair shocked at Saturday struggles but eyeing recovery

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz admit they were shocked to find Ferrari lacking so much pace as both dropped out in Q2 at the Canadian Grand Prix, but believe the race could be a different prospect.

Ferrari arrived in Montreal as the slight favorite after Leclerc’s victory in Monaco, with the car looking well-balanced over curbs at the bumpy street circuit. However, throughout Saturday, both drivers appeared to be struggling for performance and Leclerc will start 11th ahead of Sainz in 12th after they missed out on a Q3 spot by less than 0.1s.

“I don't have any explanations for now,” Leclerc said. “In FP3 already we felt that something was wrong. We couldn't see what was wrong and that was exactly the same in qualifying, where it definitely felt like something was wrong but nothing we could see was wrong.‌

“The grip was just extremely poor in the first sector especially, and then once you slide in the first sector it's a snowball effect and you never really get the performance out of the car. So yes, difficult weekend.

“It’s very surprising. I did not expect that and it's obviously disappointing, but we've got a race [today]. I believe that in the race the issues that we have had in qualifying will be a bit different.”

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Sainz was similarly perplexed, but believes Ferrari might have failed to get the car set-up right compared to its Monaco strength.

“We are a bit surprised too,” Sainz said. “Everyone knows, because since FP3, really, we saw we were slow and this weekend was going to be a tough one and you never expect to go from fighting for a win and pole position to being out in Q2, but this is Formula 1. I've seen worse things happen and we will go back and analyze why we're struggling around here.

“I think right now, I can just tell you we are lacking grip and our ride doesn't look as good as it did in Monaco. For these reasons -- lack of grip, warm-up, ride -- everything around Canada seems trickier than Monaco.”

Sainz backed up Leclerc’s prediction that the race could be a different prospect, however, with rain forecast to be an additional challenge on Sunday.

“We will see. I think there's two or three factors that could spice up the race, which is obviously the weather and the graining," he said. "There was a lot of graining in FP3 and a lot of mixed weather coming [Sunday]. These two things hopefully will make the race a bit chaotic and will mean that we can move forward.”