Charles Leclerc revealed a ‘mistake’ that hindered him from taking the F1 Singapore GP win, as he settled for second place.
The Ferrari duo looked quick all weekend, landing in the top spots in qualifying and the Sprint. Leclerc qualified in P2, with teammate Lewis Hamilton closely behind in P3. Although Leclerc had a good opportunity to take the lead at the start of the Grand Prix, a crucial ‘mistake’ made it difficult.
The Marina Bay Street Circuit offered few places to overtake without taking on significant risk. After lining up second on the grid, next to Verstappen on pole, Leclerc’s best chance to take the lead came at the start. While his initial launch off the line was strong, the Red Bull driver quickly blocked him and left as little space as possible for a move.
Asked whether he thought he could take Verstappen at the start, the Ferrari driver reflected on the opening lap, explaining that despite his strong launch, the narrow gap made it difficult.
“I mean, you don’t have much time to think in those moments,” Leclerc said, “I just saw that Max [Verstappen] had a bit of a difficult start.
“I had quite a good start, so I went alongside him. Then there wasn’t much space anymore, but I would have done exactly the same. And yeah, then it’s quite tricky.
“I mean, I was on the left, a little bit behind him, couldn’t see the panels on the right, so you lose a little bit all your references because that’s normally on the right that you have your references to brake. I tried to judge it in the best possible way, but Max managed to keep that first place.”
A crucial mistake
The Ferrari driver continued, explaining that although he saw the possibility of taking the lead in the first laps, he made a mistake that made the victory hard to achieve.
“And then there were a few opportunities in the first three laps when Max had the deployment issue, but I always thought that it was a one-off, so I wasn’t really using my battery, which maybe was a mistake. And when I was realising that he had no power at the end of the straight, I couldn’t do anything.
“It was too late for me to use my power. But I don’t know if it would have changed much. Maybe, of course, for the first stint it would have helped, but I think eventually they just had too much pace for us.”
At times, Leclerc was the fastest man on the circuit, however, it was still not enough to catch Verstappen.
When asked whether starting on a different tyre would have changed anything, Leclerc denied that it would have made a difference. Both Leclerc and the Red Bull driver opted to start the race on the Soft tyre. The Soft seemed the right call, as other drivers, including Hamilton, complained that the Mediums were unravelling quickly.
“No, I don’t think it would have helped. If anything, it probably would have been worse because the Medium just didn’t feel like a great tyre.
“So, I probably would have lost any flexibility to put Max under a bit more pressure around the pit stop time, even though he was still far. I think with the Medium he would have been further away.”
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