Charles Leclerc views final weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix as an train in harm limitation for Ferrari in its constructors’ championship struggle in opposition to McLaren.
Lando Norris began on pole place after McLaren took a one-two within the Dash, however a dramatic moist race ended with Max Verstappen profitable from seventeenth on the grid and McLaren sixth and eighth. Carlos Sainz crashed out however Leclerc held Norris off for fifth within the last phases, and with Ferrari nonetheless simply 36 factors behind McLaren within the standings he says that’s an inexpensive final result underneath the circumstances.
“I feel I’m partly guilty for it, as a result of we determined set-ups along with the workforce and I needed to enter that route,” Leclerc mentioned. “Nevertheless, it was the incorrect route, for certain.
“The tempo was simply not there. It was in qualifying, we’re completely satisfied, in qualifying, we truly weren’t too unhealthy. With the brand new tires, low gas, you’ll be able to extract extra out of the automobile, however within the race we had been nowhere. Greater than being nowhere, it was extraordinarily tough to drive, extraordinarily tough to not make any errors.
“On the finish, all this, the one factor we could possibly be just a little bit glad of is being in entrance of the 2 McLarens – to solely lose 4 factors within the constructors’ is a giant harm limitation on a weekend the place they appear to be so robust. So now we have to put every little thing collectively for the final three races.”
Leclerc was one of many drivers to make an early pit cease for brand new intermediate tires as your entire race came about in moist situations, however he rejoined in visitors and had his progress hampered.
“That was a mistake,” he mentioned. “It must be mentioned as nicely that in a race like this, it’s very tough to not make any errors by way of technique, as a result of there are such a lot of calls that you want to do. And for those who look, I feel solely the highest three made no errors.
“We had been on the opposite facet of issues, we stopped. I needed free air, so I requested the workforce to search out free air. They boxed me that lap, however sadly the pit entry and the pit exit time within the moist was so much longer than what we thought. I ended up in the midst of visitors with Ollie [Bearman] and Lewis [Hamilton], and from that second I knew that we had been dropping a lot. And there was a Security Automotive, we misplaced like three, 4 positions there.”
