Barcelona GP halted as Charles Leclerc smashes up Ferrari | F1 | Sport

Qualifying for the Barcelona-Catalunya ground to a halt during the shootout for pole position when Charles Leclerc buried the front of his Ferrari in the wall. It was the latest incident in a wretched recent run for Leclerc, who signed a new Ferrari deal last week but followed that up with a crash in his home race in Monaco.

His latest smash came during Q3 on Saturday as he attempted to put his red car on pole. He was driving round the sweeping right-hander turn four at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya when the rear of his car stepped out. As he tried to correct it, the wheels found grip again and he was jolted off the track, across the gravel and into the barrier.

It was a horrible moment for Leclerc who was quickly out of his car under his own power, though even under his race helmet his frustration was clear. The medical car came and picked him up, its deployment triggered automatically because the impact of the car with the barrier was measured at more than 25G.

Race control also red-flagged the session with eight-and-a-half minutes remaining. There was a brief delay to qualifying of around 10 minutes, which was to allow for repairs to be made to the barrier to make sure it was safe in case another driver suffered an incident at the same part of the track once the action resumed.

Leclerc had been one of the contenders for pole with Ferrari looking good for pace in the first two sections of qualifying. All the Scuderia’s hopes were suddenly on Lewis Hamilton who did manage to go faster than anyone else in Q1, showing that he did have the pace to push for pole if he got everything right with his lap.

And it very nearly resulted in a fairytale first pole position as a Ferrari driver – but not quite. His final effort was good enough for the front row but just 0.064 seconds slower than his former team-mate George Russell who put his Mercedes on pole.

It was a crucial lap from Russell given he needs to start narrowing the gap to team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the title race. Five Grand Prix victories in a row have seen the Italian teenager extend his lead over Russell to 68 points after a horrible run for the Brit which has also seen him slip behind Hamilton in the drivers’ standings.

Speaking after qualifying, Russell said: “It’s been a great weekend so far. I kind of feel like my old self again, where every lap I’m doing my job and always fighting in those top positions. At the last few races, for numerous reasons, luck hasn’t quite been on my side, but I came into this weekend as a clean slate, feeling good and it’s great to be on pole.”