Mission accomplished
There had to be a comeback and a comeback it was for Charles Leclerc on the Suzuka circuit. After yesterday's disastrous qualifying, the Ferrari driver started from eighth place and was able to climb up to fourth place, behind the two Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez and teammate Carlos Sainz, who overtook him on the track. in the last phase of the race. Leclerc was perfect in particular in the tire management during the first stint, managing to build the possibility of one race with only one pit stopthe only one to achieve this among the big names.
“I'm very happy with the race – declared the #16 from Maranello to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 at the end of the Grand Prix – but honestly this year we are strong in the race and the feeling has always been there. In Bahrain we had problems with the brakes and we didn't show the pace but we made a good leap forward. I'm happy with this“. The balance of the weekend, however, must also take into account the yesterday's qualifying and, from this perspective, the evaluation inevitably changes.
Work to do
“If we look at the weekend as a whole, I'm not happy – recognized the native of the Principality – because if I was for fourth place then I would have to stay at home. Qualifying yesterday didn't go well and even in Australia I struggled to put the tires in the right window”. A Leclerc in crisis on the flying lap is something very unusual and even the person directly involved is aware of having to reverse this unexpected negative trend.
“Qualifying has always gone well for me, but for two races I struggled to get the tires in the right window and I'm paying the price for this both in Australia and here, but the pace in the race is there. Now we have a week to work and to understand why, on my side of the garage, I can't do the out lap well in qualifying. When we manage to put this aspect right, I'm sure we will have great satisfaction“.
“I feel like I'm stupid to say I was happy with my qualifying lap and then finish eighth – concluded Leclerc – because I'm not like that. The lap is good, but the grip of the tire doesn't give you what you expect because there are these small differences in the out lap and I have to work on this. Now I have to focus on this, but every time I worked on something then it improved pretty quicklyso I'm not too worried“.
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