Leclerc looking for answers after ‘most difficult weekend of my career’ in Canada

Charles Leclerc concluded that the Canadian Grand Prix was undoubtedly the “most difficult weekend” of his career so far, the Ferrari driver struggling to extract performance out of his SF-26 even with a top-four finish.

While his team mate Lewis Hamilton appeared to be the most comfortable he’s felt at the Scuderia, Leclerc was unable to match his pace and reported issues with his brakes on Friday, which affected his confidence in committing to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s extreme braking zones.

A result of fifth in the Sprint seemed to boost his optimism for the rest of the weekend before he ended Qualifying eighth, four tenths adrift of polesitter George Russell. Tyre management then became his greatest problem in the 68-lap Grand Prix, leaving him to focus on bringing the car home safely in P4 after benefitting from incidents further ahead.

“It was a horrible, horrible weekend,” Leclerc summarised afterwards. “I had already said it was probably the most difficult weekend so far of my Formula 1 career. I’ve finished the race now and I can definitely say it’s the most difficult weekend of my Formula 1 career so far.

“Never could put the tyres in the right window, but it has nothing to do with the car of course – Lewis has done an incredible job and congratulations to him. On my side I’ve just been struggling. I had no feeling with the car.

“The only positive of a weekend like this is I’ve got Lewis in the same car and I can look at what he did this weekend and try to get answers on why I was just struggling so much. The last 15-20 laps of the race are not very representative because I kind of just wanted to bring the car home. Before that, I was just still too slow and it’s not good enough.”

Hamilton enjoyed a much smoother weekend as he claimed his best Grand Prix result with Ferrari in P2, edging out Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the position as the team continued to learn how to maximise the upgrades they introduced in Miami.

Asked whether he found his team mate’s strong weekend encouraging or frustrating, Leclerc responded: “I think both. At least I know it’s in the car that we can do better but honestly, looking at Lewis’ race and weekend, I don’t think there is any more to extract from this car.

“I think he’s done an exceptional job today. On my side there’s plenty more to exploit, at least to get to Lewis' level on a day like this. I will look into the data.

“I’ve obviously gone through difficult races where you analyse and you understand a lot out of those races so that’s what I’ll try and do.”