Charles Leclerc says he paid the price of pushing early on during the F1 Sprint to squeeze rival Max Verstappen out of the one-second DRS window.
Leclerc jumped Verstappen off the line and took the lead of the Sprint on the run to Turn 2, having taken his grid position in second place.
The Ferrari driver led most of the event, before he dropped behind Verstappen on the penultimate lap after the Dutchman completed an overtake around the outside of Turn 2.
Leclerc says he pushed hard early on as to not allow Verstappen to use DRS – but consequently, it meant Verstappen had more tyre performance at the end of the race.
“I had a very good start. We were side-by-side for Turn 1 and I could focus on my own race from that moment onwards,” Leclerc said.
“I tried to push at the beginning to get a bit of a gap and not allow Max to get in the DRS zone, because I knew that I would have been vulnerable in that case.
“But I paid the price a little bit later on in the race, I had some graining and really struggled in the last two or three laps.
“It’s like this but it’s only the sprint race and we’ll learn from this to be better tomorrow.”
Leclerc has warned that Ferrari must work to fix its graining phase issue before the grand prix on Sunday if it hopes to deliver its home crowd with a win.
“What made the difference in the end is the graining phase I went through at the end of the race and if we manage to cure that for tomorrow I’m pretty sure we’ll be in the fight for the win,” Leclerc said.
“If not, it’s going to be a bit more difficult. But anything is possible for tomorrow, I think.”
