Mekis: Charles wants to regain record number of positions

Carlos Sainz finished third in qualifying in Montreal, but team-mate Charles Leclerc will start from the back row as he was penalized for changing his power plant. But Ferrari made this move deliberately, as overtaking in Canada is generally less difficult than on many other circuits.

“Qualifying was difficult because the track conditions were constantly changing and we had only one car since the second session. This meant that we were given less information to use in our work, says Laurent Mekis, Scuderia’s sporting director. – Carlos Sainz drove well and I think we made the right decisions by choosing tactics and tyres.

It’s a shame he only came a tenth off the second result, but the track conditions were really tough, so it was hard to get a perfect circle. Max Verstappen was in any case simply the fastest this time.

Talking about Charles, he had fewer problems, although he is probably a little upset, because he didn’t participate in qualifying after the first session, because he still has to start from the last row in the race. We have decided to change the power plant of his car because we believe it is the right thing to do after what happened in Baku.

Overtaking in Montreal is easier than on other tracks, although we saw on Friday that it wasn’t as easy as we expected. In addition, during this race there are often incidents, a safety car starts or the race is stopped by red flags – all this makes it possible to break ahead. So Charles is going to win back a record number of positions.

Finally, on behalf of the Ferrari Racing Academy, we would like to congratulate Mick Schumacher on an excellent qualifying result, the best for him in Formula 1 so far.”

Haas F1 driver Mick Schumacher will start the Canadian Grand Prix in 6th position, behind his teammate Kevin Magnussen, who finished 5th on Saturday.