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Leclerc bemoans Ferrari difficulties following costly crash

Leclerc crashed out of qualifying while pushing during Q3

Charles Leclerc has bemoaned Ferrari's struggles throughout the Dutch Grand Prix weekend after crashing out of qualifying at Zandvoort. The Monégasque ran off the road on numerous occasions throughout practice in both wet and dry conditions, including three times at Tarzan in FP3. But it was Turn 9 where Leclerc lost control in Q3, bringing an early end to his qualifying and leaving Ferrari concerned over the level of damage sustained to the SF-23 ahead of race day. Speaking to media including RacingNews365.com , Leclerc - who ultimately qualified ninth on the grid - explained: “It’s one of those weekends where the car is extremely difficult to drive. “Turns 9 and 10 are corners where you go into the corner as you are releasing the brake - there's absolutely no grip in the corner for whatever reason. “Then you're just trusting the car to grip again in the exit, which it didn’t on that lap and I ended up in the wall.”

Ferrari's 'peaky' car continues to cause trouble

Ferrari highlighted that its car was “peaky” and unpredictable through various corner profiles in the early stages of the season. Leclerc hinted that the problems are once again apparent at Zandvoort as he has been unable to predict how his car will behave when turning into a corner. “It’s just a car this weekend that is extremely difficult to drive,” he said. “In Formula 1 It's all about anticipating and knowing what balance you're going to get once you get into the corner. “But at the moment, I'm getting into the corner and I have zero idea whether I'm going to have huge understeer or huge oversteer. And that makes it very, very difficult for us. “As soon as you get close to the limits, you just really don't know what's going to happen and that's exactly what happened in my Q3 lap. So it's a difficult situation. “It’s been a very difficult weekend until now. Hopefully, we can have a clean race.”

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