Sauber F1 rookie Charles Leclerc needs to 'calm down' in Bahrain
Formula 1 rookie Charles Leclerc has admitted he was "pushing way too much" in Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying and needs to "calm down" his driving
Leclerc had the edge over his more experienced Sauber team-mate Marcus Ericsson through practice and the first runs in Q1, but his qualifying ended with a spin at the final corner.
He said traffic on his second run and his own misjudgement later was to blame for ending up 19th, three tenths and two positions behind Ericsson.
"I was already pushing way too much from the beginning of the lap," Leclerc told Autosport.
"I could feel the rears were starting to give up corner after corner and at the end I just overheated them massively and spun.
"It was an accumulation over the whole lap and at the end it was just not possible to drive on them.
"I just need to find the limit of the car. I am always a little bit over it every time.
"It was already a little bit the problem in Melbourne already, here also, so I just need to feel a bit more comfortable with the car and really find the limit.
"Pushing too much is not always a good thing to do and at the moment this is my problem.
"I just need to calm down a little bit."
Leclerc was one of the stars of Friday practice, finishing 12th and 16th in the two sessions before Sauber slipped back in competitiveness on Saturday.
Ericsson looked like he might make Q2 but neither Sauber driver improved on the extra third run, after a red-flag stoppage, and he was bumped to 17th.
"I felt I hooked the lap up quite nicely but for some reason both me and Charles didn't find the grip step that others did," said Ericsson.
"The track evolution is quite big normally and what we are trying to analyse is it's a trend with both cars.
"Maybe it's something with the tyre preparation or something like that we got caught out with."
Sauber mixed it with Williams and Toro Rosso in Australia and Ericsson believed he would be able to have "a lot of fun" after retiring early in Melbourne.
"We have the same chance [in the race as in Australia] to fight with people around us," he said.
"Our long-run pace was promising and we've made some steps with the set-up that should make it even better in the race."
Leclerc said the performance step from Sauber's rivals in qualifying triggered some caution after Friday's positivity.
"We need to take that into account, because we are quite far from Q2," he said.
"Even putting everything together we could not have got there. "But if race pace is as close as Friday we can have a good race."
Lewis Hamilton has no answers why Mercedes trail Ferrari in Bahrain
Worth considering qualifying races in Formula 1 says Ross Brawn
Vettel: F1 should reinvest profits into race promoters to have greener events
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel thinks Formula 1 should reinvest some of its revenue into helping its race promoters put on more sustainable events.
Alpine has "absolutely no worries" of trouble with Alonso during 2022
Alpine Formula 1 boss Otmar Szafnauer remains confident that the team will retain a good relationship with Fernando Alonso, despite the Spaniard's decision to join Aston Martin.
Gasly: AlphaTauri ‘paying the price a bit more’ in closer F1 midfield
Pierre Gasly believes AlphaTauri is “paying the price a bit more” for its inconsistent form due to the increased competition in Formula 1’s midfield this year.
Alfa Romeo: F1 reliability issues have "cost us a fortune" in points
Alfa Romeo team boss Fred Vasseur says unreliability has "cost us a fortune in terms of points" in the 2022 Formula 1 world championship.
How a bad car creates the ultimate engineering challenge
While creating a car that is woefully off the pace is a nightmare scenario for any team, it inadvertently generates the test any engineering department would relish: to turn it into a winner. As Mercedes takes on that challenge in Formula 1 this season, McLaren’s former head of vehicle engineering reveals how the team pulled of the feat in 2009 with Lewis Hamilton
The under-fire F1 driver fighting for his future
Personable, articulate and devoid of the usual racing driver airs and graces, Nicholas Latifi is the last Formula 1 driver you’d expect to receive death threats, but such was the toxic legacy of his part in last year’s explosive season finale. And now, as ALEX KALINAUCKAS explains, he faces a battle to keep his place on the F1 grid…
The strange tyre travails faced by F1’s past heroes
Modern grand prix drivers like to think the tyres they work with are unusually difficult and temperamental. But, says MAURICE HAMILTON, their predecessors faced many of the same challenges – and some even stranger…
The returning fan car revolution that could suit F1
Gordon Murray's Brabham BT46B 'fan car' was Formula 1 engineering at perhaps its most outlandish. Now fan technology has been successfully utilised on the McMurtry Speirling at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, could it be adopted by grand prix racing once again?
Hamilton's first experience of turning silver into gold
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has been lumbered with a duff car before the 2022 Mercedes. Back in 2009, McLaren’s alchemists transformed the disastrous MP4-24 into a winning car with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel. And now it’s happening again at his current team, but can the rate of progress be matched this year?
Why few could blame Leclerc for following the example of Hamilton’s exit bombshell
OPINION: Ferrari's numerous strategy blunders, as well as some of his own mistakes, have cost Charles Leclerc dearly in the 2022 Formula 1 title battle in the first half of the season. Though he is locked into a deal with Ferrari, few could blame Leclerc if he ultimately wanted to look elsewhere - just as Lewis Hamilton did with McLaren 10 years prior
The other McLaren exile hoping to follow Perez's path to a top F1 seat
After being ditched by McLaren earlier in his F1 career Sergio Perez fought his way back into a seat with a leading team. BEN EDWARDS thinks the same could be happening to another member of the current grid
How studying Schumacher helped make Coulthard a McLaren F1 mainstay
Winner of 13 grands prix including Monaco and survivor of a life-changing plane crash, David Coulthard could be forgiven for having eased into a quiet retirement – but, as MARK GALLAGHER explains, in fact he’s busier than ever, running an award-winning media company and championing diversity in motor racing. Not bad for someone who, by his own admission, wasn’t quite the fastest driver of his generation…