Leclerc will not ‘lose confidence’ despite hitting Jeddah wall

Despite an early end to FP2 in Saudi Arabia after whacking the wall, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc says his confidence has not been dented.

Leclerc made a winning start to the 2022 campaign, claiming victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix as he led home a Ferrari one-two ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz.

And in Saudi Arabia he would pick up where he left off, topping both Friday practice sessions, though FP2 did come to a close for Leclerc sooner than he would have wanted.

On his race simulation Leclerc would suffer a heavy scrape along the wall at Turn 4, causing damage to the front steering arm, meaning his session was over with not enough time remaining to complete the repair.

Around Formula 1’s fastest street circuit, the driver who dares carry the most speed and threads their car between the walls with precision thrives, so if the confidence is lacking even slightly to get right up to the walls, then lap times will suffer.

Fortunately though, Leclerc’s confidence has not been knocked at all by the incident.

“It was an unfortunate end to an otherwise good day,” he told the Ferrari website.

“In FP2 it was a small mistake, but not one that makes me lose confidence. I expected the front to slide around more and I clipped the inside wall at Turn 4.”

Leading the way on Friday. Let’s keep going #essereFerrari #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/7XCLoT158G

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) March 25, 2022

But looking ahead to qualifying, Leclerc is confident that the performance is there in the F1-75 to put Ferrari “in the mix” for pole.

“Focusing on tomorrow, I think the pace is there,” said Leclerc.

“It’s a bit of a shame we couldn’t get the high fuel laps done, but we should be in the mix for tomorrow.”

Leclerc was not the only