Leclerc opens up about Ferrari's struggles in wet conditions after the disastrous Las Vegas qualifying

F1 Grand Prix, GP Las Vegas, Las Vegas Street Circuit

Despite a strong opening day at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc struggled for grip in the wet qualifying session, and ended up in a disappointing ninth place on a track where he displayed an impressive performance over the last two years.

Following a strong opening day at Las Vegas, Ferrari endured a very difficult day on Friday night at Las Vegas, struggling for grip and pace in very difficult conditions.

Lewis Hamilton struggled with grip on the extremely wet surface at the Las Vegas Strip. Despite his promising pace in the final hour of practice, the seven-time world champion wound up last in conditions he normally excels in.

As for his team-mate Charles Leclerc, he did make Q3 just about despite several adventures off track. In the final part of qualifying, drivers switched from full wets to intermediates, and the Monegasque lacked pace on the green-walled tyres and could only qualify ninth.

"It was a really tricky qualifying today, with low grip on the wet track.," Leclerc started his assessment. "Our car struggles in these conditions and it’s really difficult to find a way to maintain a large enough window of good grip to fight with our rivals.

Reflecting on the difficult day, the Monegasque added: "It’s frustrating, but we will continue doing everything we can to find a solution.

"The race should be dry tomorrow, so the conditions will be different again. We had quite a high downforce setup for today, so this could impact our straight-line speed in the race. We will make the most of it and I hope we can have a good start and move forward during the race."

Speaking to F1 TV after qualifying, Leclerc added: "Unfortunately it's not [just] today. It’s been like that since I joined the team we've been struggling massively at finding the grip in those kind of conditions.

“It's hugely frustrating because it's probably been my biggest strength in the junior categories and then… We are doing something wrong. I have no idea what that is because we've turned the car upside down.

“We've had Lewis and obviously Carlos [Sainz] before that joined other teams who could tell us the feeling they had with the other cars. It's just extremely difficult to find the grip with our car. Very, very unpredictable with our car which causes us to do a lot of mistakes.

“It's not that we are not trying because as a team we have tried absolutely everything. For some reason we just haven't found out way yet.”