Leclerc closed his eyes at turn 22 after his serious accident

December 5, 2021

Charles Leclerc acknowledged that he had to build his confidence little by little during Saturday after the shocking accident at the end of the day yesterday, especially in the place where it happened.

The Monegasque driver gave the best of himself on his last lap in Q3, and despite almost having another mishap, he gained 0.2 seconds compared to the previous laps, achieving a glorious fourth position.

“I don’t think we could have expected anything more than that,” he said. “The lap was very, very good, I was very much on the limit. At Turn 22 I closed my eyes on my fastest lap and it worked. I’m very happy to be able to start tomorrow from fourth place.”

“Saying with my eyes closed is just an expression, I’m pretty sure my eyes were wide open! But yeah, I missed the back of the car, and I honestly thought the ending would be the same as yesterday. But this once I kept the car on track. So I was very happy.”

Leclerc admitted that building his confidence was key to his qualifying session.

“I think the confidence on the street circuits is what makes the biggest difference in the end. And in general, we have managed to make a car that gives me confidence, which was very, very difficult here, especially after what happened yesterday.”

“I had to go step by step from the first few laps of FP3 to the last lap in Q3. And on the last lap of Q3 I was finally able to put it all together and go all out. And it worked.”

“And yeah, if you look at Turn 22, I think all day I’ve been hesitating because of what happened yesterday, and just on the last lap of Q3 I gained about two tenths against all my other laps before. So I went for it. “.

Leclerc admitted that, like his team-mate Carlos Sainz, he had problems with the medium tires in Q2, but he did not have as bad a time as the Spaniard, who did not go beyond 15th place.

“I also had a very difficult Q2. I think in Q1, I was probably more comfortable with the car. And then once we switched to the medium tyre, the car was extremely difficult to drive, the rear end was very, very unstable. “.

“But in the end we managed to change the car a bit in the second run of Q2 and it was a bit better, and then as I said I put it all together in Q3 on the soft.

Leclerc acknowledged that he did not feel 100% fit on Saturday morning: “My feet and head hurt this morning, but nothing too important.”

On the other hand, the #16 also admitted that he was surprised that both the chassis and the power unit could be reused today: “It looked pretty bad. And it felt really, really bad. I hit the rear first and it took all the impact. So in any case it is quite strange that the engine has nothing. The chassis also impacted later, but it was less severe. But yeah, overall it was a pretty big accident.