Charles Leclerc deemed the Austrian GP weekend a success, coming away with P3, just lacking the pace of the McLaren’s ahead.
Although Leclerc started on the first row, lining up second next to Lando Norris, as the lights went out, and they dove into the first corner the Monégasque quickly found himself losing a place to Oscar Piastri.
Leclerc spent the rest of the race practically on his own, slipping further back from the Papaya duo as the race progressed. The Ferrari driver just attributed the fallback to the lack of pace.
He told media in the post-race press conference, “Unfortunately, the pace today was just not enough. In the first corner, I was thinking about going, but Lando closed the door, and then that left the door open to Oscar. I lost second place there. But anyway, I think they were too fast for us to stay in second, so third was the best we could do.”
Despite the struggles in pace in comparison to the McLaren’s, Leclerc still was happy with the results, believing they maximised the weekend. He said, “I don’t regret much of what we’ve done today. I think we’ve done our maximum, just not enough pace.”
Tyre degradation and upgrades
In the Austrian heat, tyre degradation was one of the biggest issues for drivers up and down the grid. The Ferrari struggled heavily with that in the early stints, with Charles Leclerc being told to lift and coast throughout the entirety of the first stint.
Leclerc mentioned, “In the first stint I think I over pushed a little bit at the beginning trying to follow them, then I degraded a little bit more. But it’s part of the game. I’ve tried, at the end, and it didn’t make it today. I think eventually we need more pace.”
Coming into Austria, Ferrari brought some important upgrades, notably floor upgrades. Leclerc was clear that they were working, but the team’s progression was far from over.
“We’ve brought some upgrades this weekend, and they definitely helped us to do a step forward, but we need to keep pushing in that direction in order to close the gap to the McLaren, they for now are too quick.”
He went on to say that the upgrades were a significant part of getting on the podium. He said, “They are definitely a step forward. Yes. And I think it helped us to be on the podium today. The team has done an incredible job at pushing to try to get them as early as possible.”
“I know that they are still pushing extremely hard to have other upgrades as soon as possible, which I hope will make another difference and will help us to be a bit closer to McLaren, to Red Bull in their good days, or to Mercedes even in their good days. So, yeah, we are pushing hard, and I hope that we see the result as soon as possible.”
A lonely race
When asked where his key moments in the race were, he confessed he wished he’d had a better start, saying, “I wish I had done a bit of a better job to be completely alongside Lando. Maybe that would have changed a little bit for three or four laps. I don’t think we had the pace to stay there in front. Basically, from Turn 1 to the end, it was a very boring race.”
“I was on my own, just trying to manage quite a few issues that we had on our side. Let’s not call them issues, but we’ve got to do some management in the situation we’re in at the moment. I won’t go into the detail, but the lift and coast was a little bit frustrating. We paid a bit of the price for it on the first stint, but then the second and last stint were a bit more positive, which was good. But there weren’t many key moments apart from the start.”
Podiums without a win
While Charles Leclerc has collected three podiums in four races, it felt as though a win has been just out of reach. Mostly for Ferrari, the difficulties have been on Saturday in qualifying. Leaving the Monégasque to fight through the field weekend after weekend.
Coming into the Austrian GP weekend, Leclerc struggled with the car in the practice sessions, missing FP1 with Dino Beganovic running in the SF-25. However, as the team adjusted the set-up from session to session, the Ferrari driver eased into the car.
He said, “We changed quite a lot of things on the car. Obviously, I missed FP1, so FP2 was all about trying to understand where we were. Then for FP3, we did a big change in order to re-centre ourselves. I think we did a really good job from Friday to Saturday, only with one session to be able to re-centre ourselves.”
“As soon as I got into the car in FP3, the car was feeling a lot better. I didn’t do the long runs with the setup of today, but there weren’t any bad surprises as well. I think we did a good job by maximising the car potential this weekend.”
Leclerc admitted he’s looking for that win, setting his sights on Silverstone. He said, “I’m missing it too. So, I’ll give it all to try to be back on the top step of the podium. Obviously, this is our main priority. The whole team deserves it, and hopefully it will be at the next race in Silverstone. We’ll give it all.”
