Ferrari's Charles Leclerc Brings Out Almost Immediate Red Flag In Rough Start To Miami Grand Prix Weekend
The Miami Grand Prix weekend is officially here and it didn't take more than seven minutes for Ferrari to find itself on the back foot going into Friday night's Sprint Qualifying session after Charles Leclerc spun his car in one of the most technical parts of the circuit and brought out a red flag.
Blue may not be a lucky color for the Scuderia…
Leclerc hit the track in his special liveried Ferrari SF-24 with hints of blue all over it and while the car looked great, he quickly found himself on a less-than-great lap early in the only practice session of the weekend.
Leclerc made it through just about all of the Turns 13 to 16 complex that drivers haven't necessarily loved in the first couple of trips to Miami. However, as he was going through Turn 16, he took a ton of the curb which unsettled the car and sent him into a spin.
No fuss, no muss… except that this corner out of the technical section onto the back straight is pretty narrow, and nowadays F1 cars are almost as long as the yachts parked in the fake marina on the other side of the circuit.
So, while Leclerc kept it out of the wall — which is a huge positive — there wasn't enough room for him to get it turned around without throwing it into reverse. However, in doing this he ran into some kind of problem with the engine or gearbox, and the car needed to be retrieved under red flag conditions.
This puts Ferrari and Leclerc on the backfoot for the rest of the weekend with practice time already at a premium.
Leclerc had trouble last year as well when he crashed in qualifying. He started and finished last year's grand pix in P7
However, it wasn't a bad afternoon for Leclerc's teammate Carlos Sainz who got plenty of track time in and set the third-fastest lap of the session.
Five teams are represented in the top 10 including — *gasps* — both Alpines.
We'll see how the pecking order shapes up through the weekend, but we could be in for some interesting results.