“Nice call, beautiful.” – With bitter irony, Charles Leclerc commented over the team radio on Scuderia Ferrari’s choice to send him on the track with intermediate tires in the start of the final phase qualifying for the 2022 Formula 1 Brazil Grand Prix at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, better known as Interlagos. All of the other drivers, including his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz, started Q3 with of with slicks.
The Monegasque driver was not lucky because the expected rain did not immediately arrive, and the red flag which was shown shortly after by George Russell’s crash put an end to Charles Leclerc’s hopes of improving the tenth place: “We were expecting some rain that never came. I will speak to the team and understand what we can do better in those conditions, but extremely disappointing, the pace was there. Now we need to get on it and obviously do everything good for the rest of the weekend. I accepted the decision to go on the inters and then I waited for the rain that never came.” – Charles Leclerc explained after qualifying.
Laurent Mekies, Ferrari sporting director, commented on the Brazilian qualifying in an interview for Sky Sport F1: “Since Q1 this Qualifying has been a lottery, we knew that the rain was imminent and so we divided our strategies. It was a matter of a minute, a minute that could have rewarded Carlos Sainz or Charles Leclerc. We are sorry for Charles. However, this was a good test for the future, we made 6-8-10 important decisions between drivers and teams in an hour because even in Q1 we didn’t know whether to get back on track with intermediate tires, we waited because we saw the excellent times which Pierre Gasly was setting. There is always something to learn and the choice for Q3 was truly borderline” – the Ferrari sporting director explained after the qualifying session for the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo.
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