Charles Leclerc has said Mercedes’ race pace made him abandon a push to win the 2026 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix and chase Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton instead.
The 56-lap race at the Shanghai International Circuit, on Sunday, has finally announced the German marque’s stronghold on its competition this season.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli won his maiden Grand Prix, followed home by George Russell to make it back-to-back 1-2s for Mercedes in F1’s latest era.
That said, the Silver Arrows were being hounded by the Ferrari duo of Leclerc and Hamilton for much of the opening phases of the race, only to be left on their own as the Maranello-based team decided to scrap it out between themselves for the final podium place.
The Monegasque revealed later that Mercedes’ alarming race-pace meant he and Hamilton decided to initiate an inter-team battle instead.
“I really enjoyed it. It’s not very often that I have a smile after P4,” he told Sky Sports F1 after the race, speaking of his intense race-long battle with the seven-time World Champion.
“I mean, of course, there are many negatives on a race like, I mean, many negatives.
“There’s one big negative after a race like this, and this is the gap to the Mercedes. And Lewis and I, I think the maximum, obviously, we lost some time, so maybe the gap is a bit bigger than what we thought. We lost when they were gone, we decided that we will fight at least for the podium.”
“So, that didn’t optimise our race time, but it didn’t change anything to our results.”
Mercedes has finally stopped ‘sandbagging’ – Leclerc
Despite a dominant showing at Melbourne, last weekend, Leclerc believes the true extent of the W17’s competitiveness was on show, in Shanghai, this weekend.
“They [Mercedes] are just extremely strong at the moment,” Leclerc added. “I feel like it was a bit of, in Australia, we expected them to be so strong, but they never really showed that pace in the race.
“Yesterday in the sprint race, we expected they didn’t really show. I think they finally showed it today, and it’s a big gap.”
Leclerc outlines ‘impressive’ Ferrari feat needed to fight against Mercedes
Circling back to his fight with Hamilton, Leclerc reiterated that it was enjoyable, both, for himself and the team.
That said, looking forward to the remainder of the 2026 campaign, the iconic Italian marque needs to catch up to Mercedes, sooner rather than later.
The Monegasque emphasised how, in the end, the one that manages to out-develop the other will keep a lasting advantage over the rest of the grid – at least as far as this season is concerned.
“That’s a bit disappointing, but to come back with Lewis’s fight, it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. I’m not sure the team enjoyed it as much as we did, but I did,” he concluded.
“I think [Mercedes] are very strong. I think they are very strong in general. Then again, I’ve said it multiple times, but I really think that this year is going to be all about development.
“But Mercedes is extremely strong, so I don’t know. They are for sure the big favourites. If we manage to turn that situation around, it would be very impressive.”
Leclerc and Hamilton will be in need of a little more power from the SF-26 to challenge Mercedes at Suzuka in two weeks time.
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