Charles Leclerc has opened up on the crash that brought his free practice two session in Miami to a premature end on Friday.
During the long-run simulations, the Ferrari driver lost the rear of the car and as he corrected himself, he speared into the wall at Turn 8.
The front right corner of the car was damaged in the clash and Race Control opted to deploy a red flag to clear the SF23.
Leclerc admitted that he was at fault for the spin, citing that Miami’s low-grip surface off the racing line caused him to end up in the wall.
“Yeah overall it’s very tricky because there is only one line and whenever you get off-line there is really, really, poor grip,” he said.
“That’s basically what happened – I pushed too much, lost the rear, tried to recover from it but I had no grip to turn the car so that was it.
“But no big damage, obviously the front right is gone but apart from that no damage to the rear of the car which is the most important but tomorrow is another day and I’m sure it will go well.”
Despite the crash, Leclerc ended the session in third place behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz.
While he has confidence in the car over one lap, he says Ferrari is still “so far behind” Red Bull in long-run pace.
“It’s like this, but apart from that I think the feeling is quite good over one lap,” he said.
“For the race we are so far behind, Red Bull is again in a league of its own, very, very far in front.
“So in the race we definitely have a lot of time to find but in qualifying pace we are more or less there.
“I don’t think we have any miracles in hand to close the gap so I don’t think we will be much closer.”
