Martin Brundle issues ‘unusual’ verdict on ‘25G+’ Charles Leclerc crash at the Barcelona Grand Prix

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Martin Brundle has blamed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for making a mistake that caused his crash during qualifying for the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix this Saturday.

Leclerc had threatened to be a contender for the top positions with his pace over the earlier phases of qualifying in Barcelona. The 28-year-old finished Q1 with the third-fastest lap, and he improved to P2 in Q2 with a deficit of only 0.053s to George Russell atop the timesheets.

Yet Leclerc would not even set a time in Q3, as the Monegasque found the barriers at Turn 4 during the provisional runs. His crash also brought the session to a brief halt, as the red flags were waved to allow the marshals to remove his wrecked Ferrari SF-26 from the gravel trap.

Crashing out of qualifying would be very costly for Leclerc, indeed, as he fell to P10 while his Ferrari teammate took P2. Russell scored pole position for the Barcelona-Catalunya GP with 1:14.679, enough to edge Lewis Hamilton by 0.064s for an all-British front row in Montmelo.

It’s George Russell on pole in Barcelona! Rate his chances of cutting Kimi Antonelli’s points lead with a victory on Sunday?

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Martin Brundle blames Charles Leclerc for crashing out of qualifying for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix

Leclerc had placed his Ferrari SF-26 slightly further away from the kerb on the entry into T4 than he had for his earlier push laps throughout Q1 and Q2, which ensured he used more of the apex kerb and it unsettled his car enough to cause the rear to move under acceleration.

READ MORE: The five worst moments of Charles Leclerc’s Formula 1 career

Brundle believes Leclerc only has himself to blame for crashing out of qualifying at the start of Q3, with what he feels was an “unusual” mistake after crashing so early in Turn 4. He also notes that Leclerc had such a heavy impact that it meant the medical car went to the scene.

“[The] medical car [has been] deployed, meaning he’s hit the wall at greater than 25G, and that’s an unusual place to go off,” Brundle said on Sky Sports F1 (13/06, 15:51). “Quite so early in the corner, and quite so hard. That’s a huge impact there for Charles Leclerc.

“It started to slide, he got a little bit wide, it started to slide, he turned into the slide, and then it gripped up and just took him where the steering wheel was pointing, as he was counter-steering the slide.

“It’s all fine, fine, fine, it starts to move a bit, [he] hits the throttle too hard, he’s on the dirty side of the track, applies opposite lock to correct the slide, [the] front bites, and boom! Straight into the wall.”

Brundle is certain that Leclerc’s crash during qualifying for the Barcelona-Catalunya GP was a simple driver error, rather than any potential car-related issue like a surprise power surge.

“It’s impossible to know these days,” Brundle added. “On the face of it, it looks like he got a bit trigger-happy on the throttle. He got a little bit wide, thought he could save it, and just kept powering through it.

“We will never know until they tell us later in the day, if they choose to tell us, whether he had some kind of power surge. I suspect not. I suspect that’s a driver problem.”