Charles Leclerc explains: That’s where Ferrari threw away their chance of victory
With his second place in Austin, Charles Leclerc picked up important World Championship points. At one stage, he believed he could win, but Ferrari squandered that chance even before the race, as he explains.
This article is an automatically generated English version. The
US-GP: Ferrari-Star Charles Leclerc wurde es im Cockpit nicht langweilig
Foto: Rew / XPB Images
US-GP: Ferrari-Star Charles Leclerc wurde es im Cockpit nicht langweilig
© Rew / XPB Images
Ultimately, it was clear that there was no beating World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli at the US Grand Prix. The Mercedes star, who is likely to seal the title in his favour at the upcoming showdown in Mexico, crossed the finish line just under 13 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver spoke afterwards of an exciting race.
However, his main rivals were not the front-runner, who had pulled away, but Red Bull Racing star Max Verstappen and championship leader Lando Norris. “It was fun, especially the start and then later the battle with Lando and Max. So it was a race where things didn’t get too boring in the cockpit, because there was always something going on,” asserted the eight-time Grand Prix winner.
Charles Leclerc: The race was decided in qualifying
And the Monegasque admitted: “At one point I even thought victory was possible when I saw that Kimi was on a one-stop strategy. And according to our calculations, he should have struggled with his tyres towards the end of the race. But that didn’t really pan out. Still, it was a race that was great fun; it’s just a shame we couldn’t cap it off with a win.”
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However, the 29-year-old emphasised that Ferrari didn’t lose the win because of the strategy: “If you look at the three free practice sessions, you can see how fast we were. But in qualifying, it was extremely difficult to get the tyres up to temperature in the final sector. That’s probably where we threw the win away. Kimi was also very strong in the race, though, and I’d say that, looking at the whole weekend, we simply weren’t strong enough.”
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Results
Full StandingsPos
#
Driver
Driver
Team
Rounds
Time
Fastest Lap
Points
01
12
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
56
1:35:16,650
1:39,086
25
02
16
Scuderia Ferrari HP
56
+13,078
1:37,976
18
03
3
Oracle Red Bull Racing
56
+17,485
1:39,231
15
04
44
Scuderia Ferrari HP
56
+18,515
1:38,457
12
05
1
McLaren Formula 1 Team
56
+30,521
1:39,811
10
06
6
Oracle Red Bull Racing
56
+34,373
1:39,399
8
07
81
McLaren Formula 1 Team
56
+52,674
1:40,328
6
08
63
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
56
+54,303
1:39,928
4
09
30
Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One Team
56
+1:19,183
1:39,652
2
10
10
BWT Alpine Formula One Team
56
+1:27,516
1:40,193
1
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