Charles Leclerc’s F-bomb vent at “embarrassing” Ferrari qualifying

Charles Leclerc could not hide his frustration at another disappointing qualifying result for Ferrari at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Ferrari arrived in Las Vegas hoping to be competitive at a track which has historically suited them, but the Italian team appear to be running out of chances to avoid a winless season following a terrible qualifying.

Leclerc could only qualify ninth while teammate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was 20th and dead last.

It marked another miserable result for Ferrari, who slipped to fourth place in the constructors’ championship following a double retirement last time out in Brazil.

"My god, embarrassing, f***ing embarrassing. F***ing hell, I don't get how we can be so off the pace ... there's like zero grip, zero f***ing grip," Leclerc fumed over team radio.

Ferrari 'doing something wrong' in wet

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.”

Leclerc’s complaints probably won’t sit well with Ferrari chairman John Elkann, who told his drivers to “focus on driving and talk less” with some eyebrow-raising comments after the last race.

Both Hamilton and Leclerc downplayed Elkann’s public rebuke of them ahead of the weekend in Las Vegas, insisting his remarks were meant to be constructive.