The list of senior F1 drivers publicly demanding an overhaul of the 2026 qualifying format gained a new and significant signature at Suzuka. Charles Leclerc — long regarded as one of the grid's purest single-lap specialists — used the post-qualifying press conference to side openly with anything the FIA can deliver to bring back unrestricted Q3 attack.
The Ferrari driver was unusually unguarded, framing the issue as a personal one as much as a technical one.
"Whatever solution that helps us to push at the maximum those cars, because that's what I love," Leclerc said. "That's what I love about these sports really, is when you get to Q3 and you have the maximum pressure on you to deliver at best at that moment, and you try and do a lap that you haven't done before. And at the moment, this is not possible."
Why the system fights back
The complaint, repeated in different forms across half the grid this season, comes down to how the new hybrid power unit's deployment maps respond when a driver pushes beyond the inputs the software was tuned around. Instead of rewarding the brave-pedal lap, the system claws time back on the straights as it recalibrates in real time.
"Coming into Q3, at least myself, that's how I approach qualifying since forever," Leclerc explained. "You go into that last lap and you try things that are a little bit above whatever you've tried before. And when you do that, the system needs to reoptimise everything while you are driving. So for some reason whenever I get to Q3, I start losing pace."
The asymmetric punishment
Lando Norris had earlier captured the same dynamic with the line that watching the speed fall away on the straights "hurts your soul." Leclerc, for his part, made the loss less emotional and more arithmetic.
"I feel like this will be quite arrogant to say it like that, but surely I think for everybody, going into Q3 is just not the nicest feeling," he said. "Because we want to be at the limit of those cars, and whenever you play with those limits, not only do you pay the price of a small snap, but you also pay triple the price in the straight. And this is very frustrating."
That is the part of the story most likely to land at the FIA: a driver respected for his Saturday craft is publicly arguing that the regulations are punishing the very behaviour they were designed to elevate.
A collective fix
Leclerc was careful not to frame this as a Ferrari complaint. He instead positioned it as a sport-wide problem the governing body is already working through ahead of midseason discussions in Miami.
"I also know that the FIA is obviously trying to understand what are the things we can do to fix those issues going forward," he said, "because it's still something that everybody has."
With Norris, Russell and now Leclerc all on the record, the FIA's planned regulation tweaks have a quote-rich body of driver evidence behind them. The signal from Suzuka is clear: the men paid to take qualifying to its limit say the rule book is making that impossible.
