F1 | Leclerc retracts: “Yesterday was my fault, today no regrets”

Ferrari managed to make up for yesterday afternoon’s terrible qualifying by taking home a fifth and seventh place at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, home of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Thanks to a good strategy, the Maranello team gained several positions, with Leclerc battling for fourth place with George Russell’s Mercedes until the final kilometres. Only a better traction of the W15 number 63 prevented Charles from overtaking and finishing at the foot of the podium.

At the end of the race, Leclerc was aware of having put together a perfect race with the help of the team, but he wanted to retract the words he said yesterday after qualifying which had sounded like a sort of accusation against the team, guilty of not having given him a set of tyres at the right temperature when he needed them most.

Today, Leclerc took full responsibility for what happened yesterday, emphasizing how the mistake in turn 1 was more decisive for the qualification than the wrong tire temperature. Words that sound like the result of an internal discussion in the team, and that Charles wanted to say today.

“We had a perfect race, we did everything in the best possible way. However, I would like to go back for a moment to yesterday’s qualifying. The tyres were certainly not at the right temperature when I went out on the last attempt, but if I hadn’t gone long in turn 1, I would certainly have helped myself more and wouldn’t have wasted the last lap. I am to blame for yesterday’s qualifying and with my words yesterday, perhaps, I wasn’t as clear as I would have liked. So today I paid for yesterday’s qualifying which was… how can I say… let’s say bad to avoid swearing, I don’t want to work with Max (laughs)”.

Returning to the race, Leclerc was unable to express the potential of his Red in the first part because he was slowed down by the train formed by Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, both much slower than his Ferrari. The effect of the DRS did not allow him to try to attack, but once the pit stops began, the Monegasque’s race began, and he began the comeback, finishing in fifth place.

“Today was a comeback race but we had a really good race. The first part was frustrating, because I lost a lot of time behind Nico (Hulkenberg) and Fernando (Alonso), but we had a good race. It wasn’t enough for fourth place, but it went well.”

Ferrari decided to adopt two different strategies, and both paid off. Sainz stopped very early, switching from the Mediums to the Hards, making several undercuts on the cars in front of him. Leclerc, on the other hand, went long on the Mediums and then made the most of the Hards in the second stint.

“We talked a lot about strategies and about making a very early pit stop like Sainz did to do the undercut. But it’s always difficult… We thought it was better to adopt two different strategies with the two cars, also imagining the intervention of a Safety Car, a red flag. We hoped for that. But then we knew that going a bit longer wouldn’t have been a disaster, in fact we had a good race and I have no regrets.”