Charles Leclerc: “I go faster in corners — and lose everything on the straight”

Ferrari driver’s radio message highlights how 2026 F1 rules punish drivers for pushing harder in qualifying

Onboard footage from the cockpit of Charles Leclerc's Ferrari has surfaced showing the Monegasque driver fuming following qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.

While Leclerc qualified fourth for the Japanese Grand Prix, he fumed over the team radio: "I can’t understand quali, it’s a f**king joke! I go faster in corners, throttle earlier, for f**k’s sake, I'm losing everything in the straight!"

The FIA made a tweak to the qualifying rules for Japan, altering the maximum permitted energy recharge from nine megajoules to eight megajoules to reduce the amount of super clipping. This came after some drivers argued that the more they pushed the limits during qualifying, the more super clipping they suffered ahead of the braking zones.

Although the rule change seemed to have an overall positive effect on qualifying, Leclerc later told the media: "I would say that [my heart rate] was little bit higher when on the straight, you start losing time being flat out.

"But in the corner itself... I mean, these are the kind of things that happen in Q3 and especially with my driving style, I know it happens, very often in the past. But it pays off more than it hurts you.

"Apart from with these cars it seems to bite you more than it pays off, just because then I lost a big amount of speed in the straight, not a huge amount. Nothing close to what I had in Shanghai, but still I've lost some time compared to my Q2 lap, which is very frustrating, but this is something we'll look at and try to understand."

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Lars Baron / LAT Images via Getty Images

Fans were quick to react to the team radio moment. "You've got to drive massively within yourself with these cars. It must be very frustrating," one wrote on Reddit, while another added: "Everyone's frustration reaching the level Max is at."

Someone else posted: "These regulations are a pain for everyone not driving a Mercedes."

"He's right to be upset, this formula negates every advantage he has in quali. If you were naturally slower, now you can run twisty sectors at the same speed you would based on skill alone, but now this time you can recharge batteries and murder naturally faster drivers on the straights. Not sure who can like this... but guess it is what it is," another fan wrote.