Leclerc crashes in Q3 at Barcelona to start 10th as Hamilton looms in second

Charles Leclerc will start Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix from 10th on the grid after crashing out on his first push lap in Q3 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while team-mate Lewis Hamilton lines up second — a result that deepens Leclerc’s already difficult run of form.

The Monegasque drifted onto the dustier line at Turn 4, lost the rear of his Ferrari, and spun into the barrier before he could set a meaningful time. It was a costly error on a weekend when Leclerc had felt genuinely competitive, making the outcome all the harder to accept.

“I felt very ashamed after the last three weekends that have been particularly difficult for me,” Leclerc said. “Today, and this weekend, I think everything felt really, really good and on these days I need to deliver and I didn’t. So I felt very ashamed in general.”

Leclerc had arrived in Barcelona having switched to a brake configuration similar to Hamilton’s, following a crash in Monaco last weekend that he attributed to brake issues. He was quick to rule out any mechanical excuse this time around.

“No, no, there’s none of that,” he said when asked whether brakes played a role. “I adapted very well straight from FP2, I felt very at ease with it — there’s no excuses.”

His diagnosis of the crash pointed instead to a deliberate but ultimately misjudged attempt to compensate for a known weakness. “I released the brakes earlier,” he explained. “I think we were close to being the fastest car every corner apart from Turn 4. I knew it was a weakness, I knew I had to make everything perfect for that lap. I tried, but I obviously regret it.”

The timing is damaging in the championship context. Hamilton’s second-place start gives him a strong platform to extend his points lead over Leclerc, having already moved ahead of his team-mate following podiums in Canada and Monaco. Leclerc is now without a podium since Japan in March.

“The last two races I was in a very tricky configuration — that didn’t make it easy,” Leclerc acknowledged. “But this weekend there was none of that. The car was great, the feeling with the car was amazing and I didn’t deliver. If anything, it’s a lot worse than that — I put it into the wall.”

Despite the frustration, Leclerc said the return of his confidence in the car gives him reason for optimism heading into Sunday’s race. “The only positive I can take is that the feeling that I have in the car is back and for tomorrow I feel optimistic. But I need to show that. I just need to do the perfect race.”