Charles Leclerc says Ferrari took a clear step in his car’s performance at the Austrian Grand Prix despite a pace deficit with McLaren in the race.
Rand Norris was on pole for over half a second, officially holding his teammate Oscar Piastri in a close fight, with Leclair crossing the line within 20 seconds of Norris. Despite that gap, Leclerc believes that the form shown in the second half of the race is more encouraging and has already been drifting for more than 14 seconds after making the first pit stop.
“The first stint was poor on our part, but I thought the second and last stints were reasonable,” Leclerc said. “I mean, I was obviously focused on my race, but I didn’t see all the lap times.
“I saw the gap at the end of the race, and it’s not the gap you want to see, but unfortunately, it’s the gap we’ve had since the beginning of the season.
“It’s a step forward… I think it helped us get to the podium, and our team did an incredible job pushing us to try them out as quickly as possible.
Leclerc says he was hampered by car management requirements in the first part of the race, which led to him having a lonely afternoon at the Red Bull Ring.
“There weren’t many important moments on my side. Obviously, I wish I had done a little better job of getting fully lined up with Start-Rand,” he said. “Maybe it would have been a bit different on three laps or four laps, and we don’t think there’s a pace to stay there.
“Basically, from turn 1 to the end, it was a very boring race. I was trying to manage myself a considerable number of problems we had sided with. I wouldn’t call them ‘problems’, but at this point I have to do some kind of control.
“We paid a bit of a price for it in the first stint, but the second and final stints were a little more positive. That was good. But there weren’t many important moments from the start.”