Thanks to nine pole positions, three wins and 11 podiums and with the icing on the cake of second place in the drivers’ standings, the 2022 season was undoubtedly the best in the still young career of Charles Leclerc. Looking at what had been the first three races of this year however, with the Monegasque capable of obtaining two victories and a second place and above all of hoisting +46 in standings over Max Verstappen, a sense of bitterness remains in the Prancing Horse fans. In fact, the feeling is that this could be the right year – if not to break the lack of Drivers’ titles that has lasted since 2007 – at least to challenge Red Bull until the last race of the championship.
With the passing of the Grands Prix, however, the Milton Keynes team dug a heavy groove in the standings, closing the gap collected by Ferrari and overtaking it with momentum. Since the summer break, the RB18 has appeared much faster than the F1-75, but even in the first half of the season – despite having the best car available – Ferrari has wasted so many points for errors related to the strategy and interpretation of the races. Leclerc spoke about these problems, and more, during an interview with the German site Auto Motor und Sport. First of all, the redhead’s #16 underlined i performance deficits of the redhead in the stretches. Then he concentrated on the strategy aspect.
“Their [Red Bull] they are really strong on the straights – explained Leclerc – at the beginning of the season we managed to make up the deficit because we were faster in the corners. Then they took a step forward and were just faster than us in general. Tire wear? I don’t think that was the problem anymore. We weren’t good enough to have perfect races on Sunday, for example in terms of strategy. Sometimes we put ourselves in non-optimal situations – added the Ferrari driver – which forced us to do long stints with just one tyre. We have to work to improve our performance on race Sundays. If I look at the whole season, I think we have had the performance to fight for the title. But we didn’t“, he concluded.
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