Charles Leclerc has admitted that choosing the wrong set-up direction and a strategic mistake unravelled Ferrari’s podium hopes in Formula 1‘s Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Ferrari was unable to maintain the momentum that saw it win the previous two races at a wet Brazil as Leclerc completed the top five, while Carlos Sainz crashed out.
The Italian marque struggled in comparison to recent rounds around the Interlagos track, but Leclerc could have wound up inside the top three with alternative events.
Leclerc was running in a train behind third-place Yuki Tsunoda’s RB when Ferrari took the decision to bring him into the pits on Lap 24 to change to new Intermediates.
That would materialise to be the incorrect choice as the conditions deteriorating led to Franco Colapinto crashing his Williams on Lap 32 and bringing out the red flag.
The stoppage allowed those who hadn’t pitted – including race winner Max Verstappen and the two podium-sitting Alpines – to swap tyres without relinquishing a spot.
Leclerc, who had emerged behind Oliver Bearman’s Haas and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, has conceded that hindsight proves Ferrari ought to have avoided that stop.
Asked about the call that saw him be the first driver to come into the pit lane, Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week: “That was a mistake.
“It needs to be said as well that on a race like this, it’s very difficult to not do any mistakes in terms of strategy, because there are so many calls that you need to do.
“And if you look, I think only the top three [Verstappen and both Alpine drivers] did no mistakes on a race like this.
“We were on the other side of things, we stopped. I wanted free air, so I asked the team to find free air.
“They boxed me that lap, but unfortunately the pitstop- Not the pit stop, but the pit entry and the pit exit time in the wet was a lot longer than what we thought.
“I ended up in the middle of traffic with Ollie and Lewis, and from that moment I knew that we were losing so much. There was a Safety Car we lost like three, four positions.”
Leclerc admits to wrong set-up direction
Leclerc managed to gain two places on a later restart when he made a bold, late braking move down the inside at Turn 1 to overtake Lando Norris and George Russell.
However, Leclerc would surrender fourth position to Russell several laps later when a wide moment at Turn 4 allowed the Mercedes driver to sneak back up his inside.
The Monegasque has revealed that Ferrari’s SF-24 car was challenging to drive in the damp conditions, which he attributed to the set-up avenue he chose to prioritise.
“I think I’m partly to blame, because we decided [on] set-ups together with the team and today I wanted to go into that direction,” he explained.
“However, it was the wrong route for sure. Today, the pace was just not there.
“It was in qualifying, we’re happy, in qualifying, we actually weren’t too bad.
“With the new tyres, low fuel, you can extract more out of the car, but in the race we were nowhere.
“More than being nowhere, it was extremely difficult to drive, extremely difficult to not do any mistakes.”
Ferrari’s title hopes remain alive
Leclerc, though, salvaged some solace in beating both the McLaren drivers to keep Ferrari’s Constructors’ Championship chances alive as the gap stands at 36 points.
“At the end, looking at all this, the only thing we could be a little bit satisfied of is being in front of the two McLarens,” he continued.
“To only lose four points in the Constructors is a big damage limitation on the weekend where they seem to be so strong.
“So yeah, now we need to put everything together for the last three races.”
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