Leclerc crashes a result of trying too hard to catch Red Bull, says Ferrari

The Monegasque driver has twice crashed at Turn 7 this weekend, first losing the car in second practice on Friday before the rear snapped and he spun into the barrier in Q3.

The resulting red flag left Sergio Perez on pole ahead of Fernando Alonso, while Leclerc’s banker lap placed him seventh, with 2022 championship rival Max Verstappen in ninth.

The team has subsequently changed the rear wing, gearbox, floor and rear suspension on the SF-23, although the new parts have come from the allocated pool so will not incur a grid penalty.

Ferrari’s Jock Clear implied the cause of the shunt was driver error, rather than rear-end instability triggered by a bump or an aerodynamic characteristic.

He said: “In some ways, this maybe is a reflection of his mindset when he is up against a car that is demonstrably quicker than him [like the Red Bull].

“It’s a sort of: ‘I’m just going to have to make the difference myself’. Of course, physics ultimately catches you out.”

The team will not ask Azerbaijan sprint and grand prix polesitter Leclerc to change his approach to qualifying.

Clear said: “We’re not going say to him: ‘Look, calm down, Charles’. Over the course of a year, his qualifying is outstanding. That puts him in a very strong position for a lot of races.

“I think he smelled the opportunity for another pole position, to be honest, and maybe just got a bit ahead of himself.”

Further suggesting the shunt was not triggered by the inherent handling of the car, Ferrari reckons a revised floor for Miami has instead made the SF-23 more “benign”.

The front and mid-floor and diffuser geometry have been tweaked just ahead of the rear wheels to control airflow to the diffuser. The impact has been described as “powerful”.

Clear explained: “It gives the driver a more consistent balance through medium-speed, high-speed, low-speed, and of course, braking and entry and then exit.

He added: “Maybe what happened yesterday with Charles is actually a testament to that. He was really going for it in those high-speed Turns 4-6 curves.”

Ferrari also reckoned “self-preservation” kicked in during Leclerc’s crash, as he turned a head-on crash into a backwards spin into the barriers to potentially risk a grid penalty from the component changes.