Charles Leclerc believes he could have applied more pressure to Max Verstappen during the Formula 1 Miami Sprint if he had remained close enough to activate DRS.
Leclerc had qualified second and utilised starting on newer Medium rubber at the start to pull alongside Verstappen, who moved across to shut the door on the Ferrari.
“I had a quite a good launch then I was in the inside of Max for Turn 1,” he said.
“We both brake I think very late, too late, but we still managed to make the corner and eventually Max kept the track position.
“After that it was all about I was trying to stay within one second to get the DRS, especially after the first safety car which we didn’t manage to do and then we’re in a position where it was actually very difficult to to come back to Max.
“I think we had a bit of a tyre advantage, we had the newer new mediums so it’s going to be very important to try and obviously be in front in qualifying.”
Upon the Safety Car restart, Verstappen bolted and put a second buffer between his Red Bull and Leclerc, preventing the Monegasque from being within DRS range.
Leclerc suspects that Ferrari was a match for Red Bull on degradation in race trim but not remaining inside that DRS window stopped him from mounting an attack.
Asked to evaluate his tyre usage compared to Verstappen during the 18-lap encounter, Leclerc replied: “I think we were quite similar on that.
“Maybe in the last two, three laps Max had the upper hand and he pulled away a bit more. But apart from that, I was just struggling a little bit with the dirty air.
“Whenever I was getting within 1.8, 1.7, I would drop to 2.2, 2.3 and then I would come back a little bit. So I was mostly struggling with dirty air.
“I think if I had the DRS on that first lap, it probably, we probably could have put him under a bit more pressure, but we didn’t.
“So we need to look into that tomorrow to try and make sure that we keep the DRS if we are behind and we pull away if we are in front.”
When pressed to answer whether turbulence behind another car was worse here than other venues by Motorsport Week, Leclerc said: “No, I think it’s always been the case.
“I think also it’s very car-dependent. I think some teams are saying that it’s getting worse.
“For some reason on my side, It actually feels a little bit better compared to last year to follow but we still feel it and especially when it’s all about tyre overheating as you are behind, you have a little bit less downforce, you slide a bit more and then the overheating is getting worse and worse. It’s not track-specific, I think it’s always been like that.”
Leclerc managed to maintain the gap over Sergio Perez in the sister Red Bull to claim second, despite a spin in the sole practice hour limiting him to a handful of laps.
“I don’t think anybody on the grid has an optimal setup because with the very few laps we do in FP1, and especially for me as I’ve only done one, you’re always going a little bit into the unknown and anticipating also the track conditions throughout the weekend as from the Friday to the Sunday it changes a lot,” he explained.
“It’s always very difficult but I think we did a reasonably good job. We still have to change a few things for this afternoon to make it better.”
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