Another complicated weekend for Charles Leclerc in Spain
While coming out of a 6th place in the streets where he grew up, Charles Leclerc once again struggled during this weekend, in Catalan territory.
Charles Leclerc had a very complicated weekend. The Monegasque driver finished 11th in a Grand Prix that was unusually anonymous for him. Thanks to Yuki Tsunoda’s penalty, he narrowly missed out on scoring points, just behind his good friend Pierre Gasly.
Charles Leclerc started from a distance. For the first time since Monaco 2019, the Monegasque was eliminated in Q1. The next day, he was forced to start from the pit lane as significant changes had been made to the rear end, thus breaking the “Parc Fermé” regulations.
The Scuderia has been struggling with race pace over the first seven races, and the Italian team seemed to have addressed this issue with the new upgraded sidepods on the SF-23. However, speaking to the media, Charles Leclerc believes that his team is still far from being where they want to be.
We still have a lot to do, it’s very strange and very complicated to understand because with the first run on hard tires, I had no grip, it was horrible. Then, on the second stint still on hard tires, everything was fine, even though I did the same thing on my part and I don’t get the same result. Fortunately, we had fewer problems today compared to qualifying. Today, the car was doing more of what we expected from it, but we still have issues with the tires, especially in the first stints.
A blatant observation
Max Verstappen leads the drivers’ championship and doesn’t seem willing to let go anytime soon. It has been a year since he last relinquished the top spot, since the Spanish Grand Prix 2022 where Charles Leclerc retired. However, at that time, the Monegasque driver was only 6 points behind Max Verstappen, and had already accumulated 104 points compared to 42 after the same number of races.
Charles Leclerc, a bit resigned, declares: « The sensations were closer to what we should feel, so it was a little better. But overall, we still lack a lot of performance, especially in races. »
The Ferrari driver now has an appointment in Canada, at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit.
