Charles Leclerc says that he is not blaming Lance Stroll following his early retirement from the Australian Grand Prix.
Leclerc found himself beached in the gravel on the opening lap after coming together with the Aston Martin driver at Turn 3.
It marked Leclerc’s second non-finish in the first three races of the 2023 campaign as a reliability issue forced him to pull over at the first round in Bahrain last month.
“[I’m] frustrated obviously, worst ever start of a season, only six points in total… so frustrating,” the Monegasque driver said.
Leclerc started the Australian Grand Prix from seventh on the grid and was following the Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Stroll into Turn 3.
The 25-year-old says he was being purposely cautious to avoid making early contact but opted to seize an opportunity when Stroll slowed towards the apex of the corner.
“I took it easy I didn’t want to take any risk,” he said. “Turn 3, I honestly wasn’t really planning to do any overtakes there.
“But Lance had to brake quite early because Fernando had to because of the cars in front so I saw there was a gap on the outside, I went for it.
“Unfortunately Fernando had to slow even more down the car and Lance found himself between Fernando and myself and we had contact.
“I’m not blaming it on Lance, I think it’s a racing incident, but just very frustrating because the end result is I’m going home with basically zero points.”
Leclerc will have to wait some time before attempting to make amends for his disappointing outing in Melbourne, as the next round in Baku doesn’t occur until the end of the month.
“I like not having a big break whenever things are going bad, [but] it’s like this,” he said.
“I’ll use it in the best way possible to improve the car especially, hopefully with Carlos Sainz we see the pace of the car today, we’ve done quite a bit of changes, hopefully we can see the benefits of it.
“For now I think instead of thinking long-term target, just finishing a race without any penalties or issues or whatsoever is a priority then take the momentum and take what’s possible.”
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