Post-Monaco run 'worse than a nightmare' - Leclerc

Charles Leclerc says his run of races since victory in Monaco have been “worse than a nightmare” after finishing a lap down in the British Grand Prix.

The win in Monaco came one week after Ferrari introduced an upgrade that kept the team competitive at the front of the field with Red Bull and McLaren, but Leclerc then dropped out in Q2 in Canada amid set-up issues, going on to retire from the race with a power unit problem. Fifth place in Spain was followed by a first-lap puncture in Austria that let to him finishing 11th, and he was then 14th at Silverstone after again failing to reach Q3.

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“It’s very hard,” Leclerc said. “Very hard, I don’t really have the words to explain it but it’s been four races that have been worse than a nightmare, so I hope we can come back soon.

“It’s very difficult to look at positives in days like this, I just want to go back with the team, analyze the ways we are making decisions, and why we were on the wrong side.”

Starting out of position, Leclerc had moved into the top seven early on but opted to make a pit stop for intermediate tires during an early shower that the rest of the field rode out on slicks, and the strategic call cost him huge time and soon put him a lap down.

“It was clearly the wrong one, I’ll look back into it with the decision,” said Leclerc. “With the message I got and the information I had it felt like it was the right one, it was raining a lot, I was told the rain was going to be heavy so I stopped to anticipate, but the rain came eight or nine laps later, so that was obviously the end of our race. Very frustrating, another weekend to forget and it starts to be a lot.”

And it’s not just strategic calls that are troubling Ferrari, with Leclerc admitting a further upgrade introduced in Spain has not led to the level of performance the team was hoping for.

“It’s a tricky situation that we are in at the moment. The upgrade brought us the numbers we were expecting but it also brought us quite a lot of bouncing in the high speed and at a track like this we decided it was probably better having a bit less performance but having more the consistency and I think it was the right choice.

“Going forward we’ll analyze the data of the two packages and see if there’s anything we didn’t understand with the new one.”