Charles Leclerc reckons he and Sauber could have beaten Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg to sixth place at Formula 1’s British Grand Prix without his race-ending pit stop problem.
Leclerc was battling with Hulkenberg for the head of the midfield pack when he came in on Lap 18 of 52 to discard his Soft tyres for a fresh set of Mediums.
However, Sauber did not firmly affix his rear-right tyre and Leclerc was forced to halt his C37 a few turns later, with the team receiving a €5,000 fine for the unsafe release
"It’s a shame because we were fighting for P6 because in the end Nico finished P6 and I think the undercut was working very well, but it happens,” he said.
“I think we would have got him strategically because the pit stop was very, very good again and again we would have gained quite a lot going on new tyres.
“I was quite close to him on this lap, that’s why we pitted on that lap, so strategically I think we could have been in front.”
Leclerc nonetheless stressed that he bore no ill-feeling towards the team for the botched stop, stressing that he took only positives from the weekend.
“In the last few races we topped twice the best pit stop of the race and once we were second I think, so we have been extremely competitive from the beginning of the year for that,” he said.
“When you push everything to the limit sometimes it happens that you make mistakes, just like me in the car, the mechanics made a mistake but it happens to everyone,” he said.
“So this is not a big thing. But definitely the positive side of it, thinking that we would have struggled so much and in the end it’s probably one of the best ones of the season so far.
“In terms of performance we were close to best of the rest, especially in qualifying we were just very close to the Haas until Q3 when they put something a bit more, but we are getting there.”
Sauber remains ninth in the Constructors' Championship.
