Charles Leclerc moved into Q3 in qualifying for the 2022 F1 Round 21 Sao Paulo GP held on 11 November (Friday), but due to strategic error by Ferrari, he settled for 10th without leaving time.
Interlagos was hit by unsettled weather on the first day of the event, with intermittent rain. Leclerc was the only one to enter Q3 on intermediate tyres.
The track was dry enough to run on slick tyres. After two laps, Leclerc pitted without setting a lap time and switched to the soft tyres.
Then the red flag came out when George Russell (Mercedes) went off the track. After the restart, the rain got heavier and the session effectively ended early.
In an interview after qualifying, Leclerc looked nothing short of irritated and explained that he planned to speak to his squad about day two.
“I expected it to rain, but it never happened,” Leclerc said.
“I’ll talk to the team to understand what we should have done in these conditions. I’m very disappointed. The pace was good.”
On the outing lap, when he took to the track with Inter, Leclerc implicitly suggested that the team change tyres, but was told to stay out.
After the red flag was shown, Leclerc asked over the radio, “Did everyone go around on the slicks?”
When she answered, “Yes,” she sarcastically said, “That’s great, that’s really great! Everyone.”
“Today’s qualifying was like a lottery,” said sporting director Laurent Mekies, even though he acknowledged some bad strategic decisions.
“Some decisions have been good, some have not, like the Charles case at the beginning of the third quarter.”
“We knew the rain was coming, so we split strategy between the two cars. In fact, the drivers on the soft tires only managed one lap before the rain got really heavy.”
“It is clearly a frustrating result for Charles and for all of us, after some very strong qualifying this season in equally difficult circumstances.”
“We will learn from today and move forward.”
“We weren’t the only ones with one car up and one down. The weekend has just begun and we want to make the most of tomorrow’s sprint.”
2022 F1 Sao Paulo GP QualifyingKevin Magnussen (Haas) took pole position. This was followed by Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and George Russell (Mercedes).
On Saturday November 13, the second day of the event, a 60-minute session of FP2 will be followed by a short-distance 100km race from 28:00 Japan time to compete for the starting grid of the Final.Sprint F1” It is performed.
