F1 | Leclerc: “On hard tires we were half a second slower than McLaren”

The Shanghai weekend was the first real cold shower of 2024 for Ferrari. After four races always on the podium, complete with a double in Australia, this time the Reds had to settle for fourth and fifth place, paying for a disappointing qualifying, but above all a step below expectations in the second stint of the Chinese race.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz started from sixth and seventh position and complicated their lives at the first corner, losing a couple of positions to battle with each other. However, the pace with the medium tires didn't seem bad at all, to the point that the Monegasque was able to extend the first stint, with a Safety Car coming to his aid which allowed him to make just one stop.

At that point it seemed to be fully fighting for the podium, because it was third behind Max Verstappen's Red Bull and Lando Norris's McLaren and so far this season the SF-24 had always performed very well on the hard tyres. This time, however, he disappointed, because Leclerc was unable to keep up with Norris and was not even able to defend himself from the return of Sergio Perez's other RB20, thus surrendering to an inevitable fourth place finish which repeats the result of yesterday's Sprint .

“Honestly, today we achieved the best possible result. In terms of pace, unfortunately, McLaren had more today. We struggled a lot with the hard tyres, because we hadn't done badly on the mediums, but the difference with the mediums It was incredible. On the medium tyres, we were going like McLaren, but on the hard tyres, we were half a second slower, so we have to analyze the situation, because the pace we've always seen with the hard tires since the beginning of the year wasn't there today.” , Leclerc said to Sky Sport F1.

When asked if today's race should be classified as disappointment, the Ferrari driver didn't beat around the bush too much: “Yes, the objective was the podium, but the surprise was Lando and McLaren in general, because Piastri It had damage to the floor, otherwise I think it would have been very difficult to even finish fourth. It was a bad surprise, especially for the hard tyre, so we need to understand what happened with that compound.”

Now there is great anticipation for the updates that should arrive from Maranello between the next races in Miami and Imola and Charles seems quite confident in this sense: “They will be the one that will give direction to the rest of the year. I'm confident because the team has done a great job so far. We'll see where these updates go.”