Charles Leclerc reveals Ferrari ‘changes’ before qualifying crash

Charles Leclerc has revealed vast changes to his car overnight left
him feeling much more positive behind the wheel prior to his crash.
The Monegasque driver entered the qualifying session seeking to
become only the fourth driver in F1 history to take five
consecutive poles at the same event. Leclerc appeared to be lacking
pace slightly compared to team-mate Lewis Hamilton heading into
qualifying and reached the top 10 shootout – something Hamilton
failed to do. But as he commenced his quest for another pole around
Baku, he crashed at Turn 15 and brought out the red flag.
“Obviously I’m frustrated, because it's a track that I normally
enjoy and where things flow quite naturally,” Leclerc told media
including RacingNews365 . “But it's been the complete opposite the
whole weekend. I’ve been struggling a lot to find the limit of the
car and to find the feeling with the car. “I knew going into
qualifying that it was a bit of an uphill [battle], and I changed
the car quite a lot going into qualifying, and I felt a lot
better.” Leclerc highlighted Ferrari's biggest grapple came via the
tyres and the C5 Medium compound which he struggled to switch on.
“Q1 and all the laps on the soft felt much better,” he said. “Then
I went on a medium, which we had kept because we thought it was the
best tyre. “Today, with these temperatures, it was just impossible
for me to switch them on. “Difficult conditions or not, I don't
think that this is the reason. I think we were just lacking a lot
of pace on mediums. “I was probably seven or eight tenths off
before the mistake, and I was pushing like crazy. “Something felt
off there, and we'll look into it.”