French-speaking assessment: Disaster for Charles Leclerc in France
After two Grand Prix crowned by two pole positions, Charles Leclerc and his team encountered much more difficulties during this French Grand Prix.
Struggling with his car since the beginning of the weekend, Charles Leclerc still managed to place his car in 7th position. A decent but disappointing performance compared to the pace of his teammate Carlos Sainz on Saturday, who secured 5th place.
The Monegasque driver completed his entire first stint in Pierre Gasly’s slipstream, but the Ferrari driver never managed to pose a threat to his childhood friend.
With the McLarens awakening in the race, Charles Leclerc was powerless against Daniel Ricciardo’s surge, who, starting from the 10th position, had already overtaken his teammate and Fernando Alonso.
Directly after being overtaken by the Australian, Ferrari stopped their driver on the 15th lap. A strategic choice that turned out to be very successful for the Scuderia as it allowed Leclerc to overtake Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, and Daniel Ricciardo.
Unfortunately, suffering greatly from his tires, Leclerc had to stop at the pitlane for a second time, which condemned him to lose many positions by coming out in 16th place, a position he held until the end.
« It is the toughest race I have done in Formula 1 I think. We were degrading the tires a lot. In the end, we made a second stop just to see if we could understand a little more but it didn’t change the result even though I changed my way of driving, some settings on the steering wheel. We really have to work because Carlos and I struggled a lot today.
A bad operation for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc who lost a lot of points to McLaren, which placed its two drivers in the top 10.
