For Charles Leclerc, not much went together at Ferrari’s home game in Imola. Sixth place sounds after the eleventh starting position after a good damage limitation, but the Monegasse struggles with the race and even had to voluntarily submit a position in the final phase.
Leclerc had come to the box in the early phase of the race as one of the first pilots and had switched from medium to the hard tires. Compared to many of his competitors, this was an additional stop because the virtual safety car offered the drivers a favorable time for a tire change shortly before racing.
Leclerc also came to the box again for an exchanging tire, but when a real safety car was called out a few laps later, it didn’t play in the cards. “We started to overheat and could not change the tires because we had nothing available,” he explains. “That was really a shame.”
Although he initially passed teammate Lewis Hamilton and Alexander Albon (Williams), he was facing a difficult final phase on old tires.
During Albon outside in curve 1, Leclerc pressed his opponent from the route and into the gravel bed, which caused team -mate Hamilton to get past Albon. He only escaped one punishment because he had Albon passed voluntarily a little later.
“Before the race, I said: This is one of these races in which you have to drive with heart where you have to go out your elbows,” he says afterwards at “Sky”. “And I know that you often go to the limit – sometimes too. But when you start from eleven place … As a driver, I simply cannot accept the situation in which we are in ourselves.”
Don’t get DRS from Hamilton
Shortly afterwards he pulled the shorter one in a duel with Hamilton and then asked the team to get DRS from Hamilton. But the pursued another plan: he wanted to chase away the podium of Oscar Piatri.
After the race, Leclerc shows understanding and explains his point of view: “My display has reported one or two rounds – I thought it was the last round. And I thought: no chance that Lewis will come to Oscar,” he says.
“But there were actually two or three rounds left. Then the team explained the situation to me, and of course I understood it.”
In the end, however, this did not matter anyway, since Leclerc was asked to let Albon pass due to the campaign. “So it wouldn’t have changed much anyway,” he shrugs his shoulders.
If qualifying were only better …
Sixth place is conciliatory after disappointing qualifying, but at Ferrari you are still looking for the pace problem on Saturday. “The positive side is that the pace was strong from start to finish,” team boss Frederic Vasseur told “Sky”.
“The strategy was good, well implemented – but it remains a little frustration, because I think if we had started the race from a better position, more would have been possible,” says the Frenchman.
This has been a problem for a long time. “We always had this difference between qualifying and racing pace. In Dschidda we were probably the fastest on the track in the race, but three tenths in qualifying. It was the same difference in Miami. This weekend it is probably the same,” says Vasseur.
“I don’t think we have the best car – Max was clearly faster than we do today. But under these conditions we are very close. That means we have to take a step in qualifying.”
Little hope for Monaco
Next is Leclerc’s home game in Monaco, which he was able to win last year. However, he does not believe in a repetition: “I think Monaco discloses some weaknesses of our car,” says Leclerc.
“I don’t know – but there are also many unpredictable things in Monaco. The risk that you take in qualifying, the car is coordinated very differently – I hope we are pleasantly surprised.”