Leclerc encouraged by Ferrari recovery but still wary of gap to leaders

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari should be proud of its recovery in the Singapore Grand Prix but admits the race performance leaves him aware of the work needed to fight for regular wins.

Ferrari had a strong pair of races in Monza and Baku, where Leclerc won and was second respectively, starting from pole position in the latter race. Heading to Singapore it was expected to be competitive again but a crash for Carlos Sainz in Q3 was followed by Leclerc getting his only lap deleted for exceeding track limits, although he fought back from ninth on the grid to finish fifth.

“Really good execution of the race,” Leclerc said. “Looking back at the [qualifying] data, maybe yes, the tires were a little bit cold but there was also a little bit of me locking up in Turn 1 and doing the track limits. So it was not all about tires and that put us on the back foot.

“So, a bit disappointed [with qualifying] because I think the potential was there to do something good this weekend. But on the other hand, sometimes it goes like that. A weekend relies on very fine details -- one lap in Q3, you do one mistake on that exact lap and your whole weekend is taking a different turn, and that’s what happened for us. But we maximized and we should be proud of our race.”

More Formula 1

Brown says Horner F1 return would be a positive, more A-B teams not so much

What the revised Formula 1 regulations are predicted to achieve in Miami

Piastri says Verstappen departure would be ‘not a great look’ but Norris thinks he’ll stay

Leclerc was particularly quick after his pit stop when he managed to overtake Lewis Hamilton and reel in George Russell, but he believes the fact he couldn’t have competed with the McLarens or Max Verstappen shows the gap that Ferrari still needs to close.

“We were very fast in clean air, but I pushed quite a bit on my tires and then when it was time to try and overtake George towards the end I didn’t have my rear tires in great shape, so I couldn’t make the pass," he said. "But we did a good job anyway.

“Still some work to do but that hasn’t changed for quite a long time. McLaren remains the car to beat -- they’ve shown it again. Red Bull seems to be so strong with Max of course, and we seem to be the third or fourth. That doesn’t really change. I think in qualifying there was definitely room to do much better and maybe the first row was possible, but in the race, apart from being in front of George I don’t think we deserved to be on the podium with the pace we had.”