"I don't care, I am pissed": Charles Leclerc has a furious exchange with his engineer after F1 Italian GP qualifying

The 2024 Italian GP qualifying didn't go as planned for Charles Leclerc, and as a result, the Ferrari star hit out at his race engineer, Bryan Bozzi. Saturday's session was one of the most intense qualifying events of this season, where Leclerc failed to shine the brightest in front of Ferrari's home crowd.

The recently concluded qualifying saw only two-tenths separate the top six as pole-sitter Lando Norris set a time of 1:19.327 to take pole position. Whereas P6 qualifier Lewis Hamilton was within 0.186 seconds of Norris' time. Between them, Charles Leclerc could only manage P4, ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz.

The Monegasque driver missed out on the pole position, as well as the top three by just six-thousands of a second (to Mercedes' George Russell). He was reportedly struggling with the slow-speed corners of the track, and as a result, was extremely unhappy about the outcome.

Following the conclusion of the session, Leclerc heard how he missed P3 by the narrowest of margins. Reacting to this, he yelled:

"S**t."

When his race engineer told him Norris' lap time, Leclerc replied:

"I don't care, I am pissed, Car is so difficult in the f***ing slow-speed. How much are we losing in Turn 1-2?"

To this, Bryan Bozzi answered:

"Almost two tenths. Please target zero it's a request."

Leclerc responded in the end:

"Yes, yes, yes I know, I know. Yes but please I am, it's okay. I am checking the dash don't worry."

Oscar Piastri of McLaren qualified in P2 to give McLaren a front-row start on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton will start his race from P6, ahead of championship leader Max Verstappen. Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, and Nico Hulkenberg complete the top 10 on the grid.

---

Charles Leclerc 'frustrated' after underwhelming qualifying performance

Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Ferrari SF-24. Source: Getty Images

Charles Leclerc appeared to be unhappy after the qualifying session at Monza where Ferrari qualified in P4 and P5. Despite bringing track-focused upgrades, the Prancing Horse was not a match to the mighty McLarens.

"Now, there's a lot of frustration. Especially in Monza where we bring track specific upgrades and even this is not enough to get to McLaren," Leclerc said in the post qualifying interview. "There’s still a lot of work to do and once again, a weekend below the performance I hoped we had.”

With the P4 starting position behind the two McLarens, Charles Leclerc will hope for strong race pace and strategy to help him trim his championship gap to Lando Norris.