F1 | Leclerc: “The Safety Car ruined the plans. McLaren impressive”

Charles Leclerc gave Ferrari their second podium of the weekend by finishing third in the race behind winner Lando Norris and world championship leader Max Verstappen.

A race in which the gaps were very small due to the very low degradation, but Ferrari’s race could have taken a terrible turn right from the start, with Sergio Perez who, by making a mistake in braking, risked hitting both reds and even his teammate.

“It was very complicated,” admitted Leclerc at the end of the grand prix held in Florida. “Perez was inside me and I certainly wasn’t able to get a good start. When I released the clutch I skated. I saw Perez on the right and he had little grip. I saw that he made a block and I thought we would touch each other. Fortunately the things didn’t go like that and we didn’t have any damage. I don’t know how Carlos managed to avoid Perez. Checo took too many risks.”

Once the scare of the start was over, Leclerc concentrated on his stints. The one with the Mediums lasted less than expected to try to undercut Oscar Piastri, who had passed him on the track in the first laps of the race. The intervention of the Safety Car, necessary to allow the stewards to move Logan Sargeant’s damaged Williams, ruined Ferrari’s plans.

“At that point we could focus on ourselves. We did quite well, but once again we lacked a bit of pace. We did our best and had a bit of bad luck with the timing of the Safety coming onto the track Car. It was certainly not ideal for us. In the end I had older tires than the drivers who were in the top positions, but at most we could have achieved second place today.

Leclerc then complimented Lando Norris, who at 24 years old won his first career Formula 1 grand prix. But the Briton’s victory must ring a wake-up call for everyone. The updates brought by the Woking team have clearly worked, so from today everyone will also have to deal with the Papaya single-seaters.

“First of all, I am very happy for Lando, who managed to achieve his first victory in Formula 1. He had often come close but for various reasons had not succeeded. This weekend he showed that he was very strong.”

“Already in Q2 he had a lap that made me say: ‘Oh, man. Today they are really very, very strong’. We expected them to be strong here, but not that strong. Lando clearly deserved the victory. Now he is it’s up to us to try to bring the updates and take them back”, concluded Leclerc.