Leclerc: My god, my god, my god...

Tifosi looked on in disbelief and disappointment as their Ferrari heroes Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton failed to make it into the all-important Q3 in Qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Leclerc's anguished cry over the radio as the reality of their Q2 exit sank in — "my god, my god, my god..." — summed up what thousands were thinking as they watched live at grand old Imola. Stunned into silence around the hallowed arena. Likewise, no doubt, the millions of Tifosi watching the sorry saga unfold on the telly or whatever.

The disappointment did not escape Ferrari F1 boss Fred Vasseur, who lamented in the team's post-Qualifying report: "Today, thousands of tifosi were here to support us and we did not get the job done so we cannot be satisfied with our result."

Vasseur continued: "As was the case in Miami, we were not able to improve our times on the new tyres, doing our fastest lap (in Q2) with the first set from Q1. The tyre situation was strange for everyone today, but it seemed to affect us more than the others, and I also think we didn’t execute the session as well as we could have done.

"[For the race] it will be up to us to try and see what we can do. Even if we had good race pace on Friday, here is not the easiest place to overtake so it will be a challenging afternoon and we will probably have to take some risks, specifically in terms of the strategy. We will focus on that now and try and do our best for the tifosi," concluded Vasseur.

The harsh reality is that when it mattered, arguably the two best qualifiers in Formula 1 — Hamilton and Leclerc — were made to look like journeymen in the SF25, which they moaned about all weekend thus far.

Leclerc said in the team report: "On a technical track like this one, everything has to be perfect, and today it showed. It’s disappointing, not just for us, but also for our tifosi who come here to support us with so much passion."

"I’ll do a reset tonight and tomorrow I’ll fight to bring home the best result we can with what we have at the moment," declared Leclerc, who will start from P11 on the grid on Sunday.

Teammate Hamilton, who will start beside him from P12, told his pitwall over the radio: "Sorry guys, I can't improve for some reason."

Later, he summed up his Qualifying session: "I really feel like we've made so many positive steps through the weekend, the car was generally feeling better and the brakes were better, the balance was really nice.

"In Q2 in run one it felt decent, but when we put the new tyres on for some reason, it just didn't have any grip and couldn't go any faster.

"It's just devastating to see everyone working so hard in the garage to be in Italy for the first Italian with me and for me at Ferrari and not making it to Q3 is definitely bittersweet," added the seven-time F1 World Champion.

Hamilton won the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix for Mercedes, unlikely he will repeat the feat, unless there is a miracle at Imola on Sunday.