Charles Leclerc secured a hard-fought podium at the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix, holding off a ‘cheeky’ George Russell in the closing stages of the race.
The Ferrari driver continued the team’s run of brilliant Grand Prix starts, moving his SF-26 from fourth to second in a matter of seconds.
From there, Leclerc trailed McLaren’s fast-charging Oscar Piastri throughout the opening stages of the race. Despite having a promising pace, the Monegasque quickly realised the McLaren driver had a pace advantage over him.
“I mean, I was happy then, I was obviously focusing on Oscar,” Leclerc explained in the post race press conference.
Despite attempting to stay within striking distance, Leclerc admitted the McLaren’s advantage in clean air made it difficult to mount a serious challenge for the lead.
“But Oscar was very strong, actually, especially in the first lap. In the first lap, I was very surprised by how much he pulled away
After that, I was just trying to be as close as possible to him, but he had a bit more pace,” he said.
“I thought also the free air was making a bit of a difference, so I was just trying to wait for later on in the race, but it didn’t happen.”
Russell’s late charge on Leclerc
Following an ill-timed Safety Car, Russell found himself behind both Ferrari drivers for the final stages of the race. Whilst the Briton previously had a pace advantage over his rivals, that seemed to have depleted.
When asked about how the final few laps were in the cockpit, Leclerc revealed the duel became complicated by radio messages between the teams. Russell was seemingly playing mind games through his race engineer.
“I don’t know, I mean it was quite tight at some point and they were also being quite cheeky,” Leclerc said.
“I think his engineer was telling him things on the radio. My engineer was telling me what his engineer was saying on the radio, but he was doing the opposite.”
This conflicting information confused the Monegasque, forcing him to think strategically about his defensive moves.
“That put me under quite a bit of pressure at one point.
I think they told me, ‘oh he’s being told to use everything on the back straight, or maybe the main straight. Then for four laps in a row, he was doing exactly the opposite.”
Despite the mind games between Ferrari and Mercedes, Leclerc held strong to round out the podium.
“I understood it pretty quickly and I could defend, but at one point I got surprised in the last corner,” he admitted.
“It was quite a fun race.”
A well-timed break in the calendar will allow the Scuderia to regroup and focus on closing the gap to the cars ahead. When F1 returns in Miami, Ferrari will hope to translate their consistent podiums into victories.
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