Leclerc to start from pitlane after Ferrari gearbox change

Charles Leclerc will start Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix from the pitlane following Ferrari's decision to swap the gearbox on the Monegasque's SF-23.

Leclerc suffered a dismal qualifying at the Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday, the Scuderia driver failing to exit Q1 after experiencing his car's strange behaviour through the track's left-hand corners.

"Through the right-hand corners the feeling was very similar to this morning, but there's just something off in the left-hand corners that we need to analyse and understand because it was very far off what I expected," commented Leclerc after Saturday's qualifying session.

• Read also: Leclerc has 'no answer' to stunning Q1 exit in Barcelona

On Sunday morning, Ferrari was still unable to pinpoint the exact cause behind Leclerc's troubles given that his car was in Parc Fermé.

Pressed by time, the Italian outfit subsequently decided as a precautionary measure to replace the entire back end of Leclerc's SF-23, as senior performance engineer Jock Clear explained.

"Qualifying on the back row has given us the unfortunate opportunity to look at a lot of things considering he was really uncomfortable with the car straightaway in qualifying, and had no confidence in the car," said Clear.

"So we’ve taken the opportunity to change the gearbox, that’s effectively all the backend, really just to make sure that there’s nothing on there that is untoward.

"That should give him confidence again, that whatever might have been in there that wasn’t quite sorted is now sorted with a completely new back end.

"And as such, he will have to start from the pitlane, but he can do that with some confidence and we can hopefully get him back in the points."

Clear added that Ferrari would also take advantage of Leclerc's pitlane start to modify his car's set-up as the rules authorize the team to do.

"We might as well do everything we can do to minimise the cost of qualifying badly and take any advantages we can from yesterday’s upset," said the Briton.

Ferrari is relying on a gearbox previously used by Leclerc. However, the latter is also the recipient of a new control electronics and energy store as part of his pitlane start package.

Leclerc won't be alone at the end of the pitlane when the lights go out this afternoon with Monegasque followed by Williams rookie Logan Sargeant as a result of his team's decision to change the suspension set-up and cooling system on the American drivers FW-45.

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