‘What the hell happened?’ – Charles Leclerc runs out of time for Sprint lap with engine reboot

Charles Leclerc in the pit lane in Austria.

Charles Leclerc was left questioning what happened with his engine after it went into anti-stall in the pit lane in the final part of Sprint qualifying in Austria.

After the majority of SQ3 saw the drivers waiting in the pit lane for their one and only run of the session, the remaining 10 drivers were queuing to get out on track for one lap of the Red Bull Ring to set the grid.

Charles Leclerc runs out of time to set SQ3 lap for Austrian Grand Prix

Leclerc was among the final drivers in the pit lane, but his Ferrari went into anti-stall mode as he was emerging from the pit lane, forcing him to restart his car.

When he eventually emerged from the pit lane, he was tight for time to cross the start/finish line in time to start a flying lap in the final part of Sprint qualifying – and was metres away from the line when the chequered flag fell.

This led him to hit his steering wheel in frustration when he found the session was over before he could set a lap.

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“What the hell happened, guys?” Leclerc questioned over team radio, with race engineer Bryan Bozzi responding: “We took the anti-stall.”

Leclerc then replied: “Thank you but the anti-stall kind of stopped the engine. The engine switched off, I don’t know if you noticed but there was no engine.”

Speaking after getting out of his car, the Ferrari driver was left frustrated at what had happened – but had not had time to discuss with the team before speaking in the media pen after the session.

He said: “I don’t know what happened, I got the anti-stall and then everything switched off. The team told me that we will speak when I’ll be back in the garage but obviously, I went straight from the car to here, so I don’t know.”

When asked what was possible without that setback, he responded: “We weren’t super strong but definitely better than P10, so it’s a bit disappointing but we’ll look at what happened and tomorrow we’ll try to have a good sprint race to come back in the front.”

Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz qualified up in fifth for Saturday’s Sprint around the Red Bull Ring, with Max Verstappen set to start on pole for the 100km dash around Austria.