Bitter trip
All the joy experienced in Monaco, on the streets of his home, for having broken a curse that seemed to haunt him, was transformed into regret for Charles Leclerc in Montreal, at the end of a truly nightmare Canadian weekend. Eliminated in Q2 in qualifying, the Ferrari driver in the race was forced to retire after an engine problem which forced him to face the first half of the race with 80 horsepower less than the competition.
Gambling doesn’t pay off
These difficulties, combined with the rain and understandable frustration, made the #16 from Maranello lose patience, and via radio he became the protagonist of a couple of rather pressing back-and-forths with his race engineerBryan Bozzi.
On lap 30 Leclerc, after having tried the risk of using hard slick tyres, realizes that it is not possible to keep his SF-24 on the road in those conditions, with the increasingly wet track. However, Bozzi initially seemed to oppose the request to return to intermediate tyres.
Leclerc: “Shouldn’t we pit again? It’s raining too much.”
Bozzi: “It will only last one or two laps.”
Leclerc: “P**** p******, it’s raining too much! I’m losing like 10 seconds per lap!”.
Bozzi: “Received, we’ll stop for intermediates”.
Agony interrupted
Shortly afterwards, aware that the race is now effectively over, from the wall we decide to put an end to Leclerc’s agony stopping the car permanently. Bozzi’s communication – “Charles, let’s collect the car” – is welcomed as a liberation from red #16, who ‘let off steam’: “Yes, yes, this is a good idea”. The inevitable finale of a three-day event that started badly and ended worse that Leclerc, Bozzi and the entire Ferrari clan hope to forget as soon as possible in Spain.
