The Monegasque driver scored today the 800th podium finish in the history of Formula 1 for Ferrari, but it’s only the second top three result this season for the Scuderia, after his third place in Baku.
From his second front row start of the season, Leclerc led briefly the race for ten laps after Verstappen’s pit stop because the Dutchman didn’t pit under VSC, but the Red Bull driver developed a consistent gap on him after taking the lead back on lap 35.
Leclerc broke down his race in the post-race interview, admitting that yesterday in mixed conditions he had struggled, finishing the Sprint race in P12:
“I think Friday and today we have maximised what we had, really. It’s more yesterday that I was off the pace, but it’s good to be back on the podium.“
He was pleased to acknowledge the positive effect the upgrades introduced by Ferrari in Canada had on the speed of his SF-23:
“The upgrades that we brought on the car made me feel a little bit better in those conditions, which is looking good for the future. The team has done an excellent job by bringing these upgrades earlier. So that’s great. But obviously there’s still a lot of work to do, because Max had a lot of pace.”
Leclerc achieved the lead of the race for his short stint, after almost 250 consecutive laps led by Verstappen, with an aggressive, anticipated undercut. The 2022 championship runner-up took advantage of the virtual safety car issued after Hulkenberg’s retirement, whereas Verstappen stayed on the strategy decided earlier by his team.
“We are struggling quite a lot in dirty air, so I was trying to get the track position even though we knew that on the long term for the whole race, it will have been difficult to keep Max behind with the race pace he had.”
Photo credits: Scuderia Ferrari
The five-time GP winner tried to hold on to his race lead, but in the end he had to concede to Verstappen: “I tried but it wasn’t enough. But at least it’s good to be back on the podium, especially after the last few races that have been a bit more difficult.”
He discussed his race again later on for Sky Sports, recalling the important role a lack of tyre degradation had in his run for the podium:
“It feels good, because yesterday was a very difficult day, obviously. On Friday we had a strong day, and today it was not an easy race, tyre management was bigger than what we expected, especially in the first part of the race, trying to keep the medium under control, which was very difficult, especially with the rears in that first stint.
“All in all we did a good race management, which helped us to get P2. It’s good to be back on the podium, still a lot of work to get the Red Bulls, but we are doing some step forwards.”
The novelties introduced in Monteral also helped with tyre management, but that wasn’t the issue which didn’t allow Leclerc to win today at the Red Bull Ring:
“There are some improvements, it felt a bit better then before. Overall I think we are lacking a bit of pace, because if you look at the beginning of the stint to the end of the stint it’s not like there is a big difference. It’s just our relative pace, we are justr slower then Red Bull at the moment.
“Today I don’t think tyre management was our biggest issue, it was just that we were slower than Red Bull.”
“Carlos did a great job with that. I was aware that Checo was coming, I didn’t know how quickly he would pass Carlos so I was trying to manage those hards for whenever he was getting in front of Carlos, but Carlos made my life a bit easier,” highlighting the performance of his teammate Carlos Sainz, who ended the race in P6 after a 10-second post-race penalty for track limits.
