Ferrari were finally “on it” when tyre blanket problem struck in Q3

Charles Leclerc said a problem with his tyre heating blankets spoiled his only attempt to set a flying lap in Q3.

The Ferrari driver will start Sunday’s race from ninth on the grid after failing to register a time in the final phase of qualifying. He was forced to abandon his first run when his team mate crashed and he went off at the start of his second, leading to his lap time being deleted.

After qualifying Leclerc revealed a problem with his heating blankets during Q3 meant his tyres were below the correct temperature when he started his first run.

“It’s a problem that we’ve never had throughout the whole weekend,” he told Sky. “The front tyres blankets were not working properly getting out of the pits.

“The front tyres were super-cold so I had to push like crazy on the out-lap to try and recover the temperature. Never happened [before], that’s it.”

Leclerc said his team were unsure what caused the problem. “I have no idea yet,” he said. “I haven’t analysed yet the data.

“I asked the team in the in-lap but there was no explanation given so I think they are still investigating it, I don’t know.”

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Ferrari were far from the pace in final practice, where Leclerc set the fifth-fastest time, nine-tenths of a second off the best of Lando Norris. However Leclerc is convinced they were in a much more competitive position in qualifying.

“I think today we were on it, in quali at least,” he said. “In FP3 we struggled a little bit, but it was warmer and we knew that we would maybe struggle a little bit with the set-up we had taken. But equally, we were confident that in quali it would come back, and it did.

“The 29.7 was quite a good lap in Q2, and in Q3 we just had to put a lap on the board but we never did so.”

Facing the likelihood of starting from the fifth row of the grid, Leclerc said he’ll need “a miracle” to continue his four-race run of podium finishes.