Charles Leclerc admitted that he and Ferrari’s recent form has been “worse than a nightmare”, following last weekend’s British Formula 1 Grand Prix. Since his hero won the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix – his home race – everything has gone wrong for the Monaco driver.
He retired in Canada, finished fifth in Spain, lost a point in P11 in Austria after crashing on the opening lap and then finished 14th at Silverstone. Leclerc’s recent results have been a combination of slow pace, car problems and, most recently, questionable strategy. At Silverstone, Leclerc started 11th, but his race ended on lap 20 after he gained points. Ferrari blinked first and sent Leclerc into the pits to change to intermediate tires when it started to rain; however, the track was still too dry for this compound. As a result, the 26-year-old racer burned his tires and was overtaken by the leaders.
“It’s difficult, I really don’t know how to explain it anymore,” Leclerc shared with several media outlets, including RacingNews365. “But it’s been four races and it’s been worse than a nightmare. I hope we can come back soon.” Leclerc was clearly depressed after his latest disastrous race. Ferrari’s recent troubles all started in Canada, although an upgrade package for the Spanish GP appears to have created more problems. Most notably, bounce is back. Overall, it’s difficult for Leclerc to focus on the positives. “It’s hard to look at the positives, I just want to go back to the team and analyze how we made the decisions on my side and why we were on the wrong side.”
Strategic mistake
Leclerc was not the only big-name driver to pit on lap 20/52 to change to intermediate tyres, as Red Bull also tried the same gamble with Sergio Perez. Ultimately, it had the same negative impact on the Mexican’s racing. Ferrari has a notorious recent history of getting strategies horribly wrong, but there appears to have been a turning point in the opening rounds of this season.
However, since the Canadian GP, the Maranello-based team’s strategists have once again made costly mistakes. In Leclerc’s mind, there was no doubt that the lap on which he pitted to change the intermediate tire was completely incorrect. “It’s obviously wrong,” Leclerc admitted. “I will reconsider that decision. “With the message I received and the information I had in the car, I felt it was indeed raining. “I was told that on this lap it would rain heavily. So I stopped to try to predict. However, the rain came down eight or nine laps later. “Obviously that was the end of our race. It was frustrating, another week to forget and things were starting to go wrong.”
