Scuderia Ferrari settled for damage limitation at the Singapore Grand Prix after a disappointing qualifying session on Saturday. Following the crash of Carlos Sainz in the early stages of Q3, which brought out the red flag, Charles Leclerc struggled with cold tyres, and his only flying lap was deleted for exceeding track limits. Starting from the fifth row on a track where overtaking is rather difficult, the Ferrari pit wall executed their strategies well and managed to pick up sixteen points on Sunday.
After being slowed down by the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and the Haas of Nico Hülkenberg, Leclerc extended his first stint on the mediums. In free air, the SF-24 came alive on the hard compound tyres, and the Monégasque driver racked up rapid lap times to make up ground and eventually finish in fifth place, ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Speaking afterwards, Leclerc offered his opinion on whether he enjoyed his recovery drive and the overall racing since he made several overtakes on track. The 26-year-old clarified that he found the race from the end of his first stint to the chequered flag to be particularly exciting. At the same time, he also expressed his frustration at being stuck behind Alonso and Hülkenberg for a significant number of laps before the first round of pit stops.
“Yeah, I did. From the end of the first stint to the last laps, I loved it.
“The first 25 laps were a nightmare because I was just sitting duck behind Fernando [Alonso] and Nico [Hülkenberg] and I was just hoping that they had to box very soon because of behind. But it never really happened and they went very long. So yeah, I just had to wait.”
Stating that they maximised the potential of the car in the second stint, Leclerc reiterated that their poor qualifying compromised their entire weekend. Shouldering the blame for his Q3 mishap, he added that he should’ve done a better job at adapting as a driver even if the tyres were out of the ideal operating window.
“But overall it’s been a good race from that moment onwards. As soon as they pitted we maximised our points. We just paid a little bit price for the bad quali yesterday.
“And actually I would like also to come back on things I said yesterday. I obviously said the tyres were not in the right window, which they weren’t. But looking back at it, there’s been plenty of times where you had the tyres a bit out of the window and you still have to do the job as a driver and eventually I didn’t do the job as a driver yesterday.
“So I think the blame was more on my side yesterday in quali to not put a lap in and today I paid the price of that.”
In terms of the debris that he hit during the early stages of the race and whether he was concerned about sustaining damage, Leclerc commented that he merely wanted to confirm with his race engineer that everything looked satisfactory on the data and avoid lapping the Marina Bay Circuit with a crippled car.
“Not really, but just I wanted to make sure that it was all good. Not to do two laps with a slow puncture or whatsoever.”
With regard to his exchange about the brakes on the radio during the race, Leclerc clarified that it wasn’t necessarily a concern since they were already aware of the necessity of managing the brake temperature heading into the weekend. Despite finding it somewhat tricky to regulate, the seven-time race winner admitted that they did a satisfactory job.
“Yeah, that was a concern. I mean, not a concern, but that was something we had to manage and we knew it before the weekend. I think everybody on the grid had to manage the brakes.
“We weren’t the only ones. But yeah, this was a little bit tricky. But we did a good job of that.”
When asked whether this weekend was a missed opportunity for the Scuderia after their excellent showing on the first day of practice, Leclerc responded in agreement. However, referring to the superior pace of the McLarens and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, he claimed that they didn’t leave a significant number of points on the table. Lamenting his inability to pass George Russell for P4 in the end, Leclerc nonetheless confessed that he was content with the recovery drive he pulled off after the setback in qualifying.
“I would say yes, but looking back at the pace of the McLaren and of Max [Verstappen], I’m not sure how many points have we missed today. George [Russell] was definitely [a missed opportunity]. I think we had the car in order to finish in front.
“I mean, I didn’t check again the pace of everybody, but of what I’ve heard about Lando’s pace, I don’t think we quite had that in the car and I don’t know where the others were behind him.
“So a few points lost, yes. I think it was a good recovery today. But again, we paid the price of a bad quali. It will happen that I do mistakes on the Saturday and I’ll have good qualifying also sometimes. But today I paid a little bit of the price of a bad Saturday.”
On the topic of the constructors’ championship and whether Ferrari can still challenge McLaren for the lead, Leclerc repeated that they should refrain from getting their hopes up after performing well at a couple of races since the Woking-based team has the better car by a considerable margin. While he expects the SF-24 to go toe-to-toe with the MCL38 on some circuits, the Monégasque anticipates them to pale in comparison with McLaren on several others.
“I think we’ve, as much as the last two races were good, I think we’ve always been saying we need to be careful to not have wrong expectations because McLaren still have a better car than us by quite a bit. We have some tracks where we’ll be very close, some others where we’ll be further away.”
Nevertheless, remarking that they might recover lost ground if the championship leaders drop the ball at any of the upcoming races, the Ferrari driver emphasised how they managed to stay on McLaren’s tail before the Singapore Grand Prix despite not having the outright fastest car.
While he still estimates them to be lacking in pure pace, Leclerc sounded cautiously optimistic about Ferrari beating the odds, given that they maintain consistency and capitalise on the remaining race weekends.
“So I don’t see ourselves too much in the fight. But if they do mistakes, then we might end up in the fight like we are now. I mean, before this race we were quite close and we never really had the fastest car, apart from Monaco maybe and Monza where we were quite strong as well, but even Monza equalised anyway.
“Yeah, I think if we keep being consistent and not having too many missed opportunities, we will do the count at the end and hopefully it will be enough to get the constructors. But on pure pace, I don’t think we are yet at the level to fight for constructors.”
