First ‘podium’
The first podium of 2023 for Ferrari has arrived, even if at the moment it is not yet included in the official statistics. In fact, after the double pole position on Friday and this morning, Charles Leclerc also brought home a second position at the finish line in the Sprint race from the weekend in Baku. The best possible result for the Monegasque of the redhead, who in any case understandably regretted the lack of victory after the finish line. With a cool head, however, it was the Scuderia’s #16 himself who recognized that, in these conditions, keeping Perez’s RB19 behind him for all 17 laps of the Sprint was not possible.
Useless resistance
“I did everything to hold on to Perez – commented Leclerc on the microphones of Sky Sport F1 – I knew there was a big enough gap behind Max, so I pushed right to the end. But I couldn’t do more. We’ve taken a step forward, but it’s still not enough.” However, for the 25-year-old from the Principality, the seven points he collected this afternoon represent a haul higher than that achieved in all three of the first race weekends. A sign of how difficult the vice world champion’s year has been up to now and how much this second place can give morale.
Final chills
The conquest of the place of honor for Leclerc was also facilitated by the damage to the left side of Max Verstappen’s car. The world champion was never able to attack the Monegasque’s redhead, but his approach in the final laps made Leclerc worry a lot. His SF-23 collapsed in terms of performance in the final phase of the Sprint, bringing attention to the chronic tire management problems of this car.
Watch out for degradation
“I had a lot of degradation – commented the Ferrari driver – we have to find something: in the sense that we have a lot of tire wear and the car is very aggressive from this point of view. We have to work on this. Overall we did a good job today – concluded Leclerc – Tomorrow I’ll do the same trying to make as few mistakes as possible and maximize everything, then we’ll see what we can do: if we manage to win well. But if the maximum is a 2nd or 3rd place, we’ll have to take the available points”. Today then, even the cats were against Ferrari: “’Cut’ in the radio team? No, it was ‘cat’. There was a cat that was on the track in front of the Safety Car, so I had to brake.” At home, the fans of the red had already feared the worst.
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