Mexican Grand Prix – Charles Leclerc maximizes the points
Charles Leclerc continues to provide good points for his team. 5th in Mexico, the Monegasque driver is climbing back up in the Drivers' Championship.
8th in qualifying, Charles Leclerc said he was very disappointed with his Saturday, which he did not consider good enough. Blame it on several small mistakes in his last Q3 lap that did not allow him to improve his lap and therefore not beat Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri.
Taking advantage of the clash between Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas, the Monegasque gained three positions even before the end of the first lap.
Early on in the race, Charles Leclerc was quickly left behind by Pierre Gasly, but he managed to gain nearly 2 seconds on his childhood friend thanks to pit stops. However, this comeback was short-lived, as by the 36th lap of the race, the Ferrari was 3 seconds behind the AlphaTauri.
Struggling towards the end of the race, Charles Leclerc lets his teammate, Carlos Sainz, pass, hoping that the latter will catch up with Pierre Gasly. However, the Ferraris have never been able to threaten the AlphaTauri, and the Spaniard therefore gives back the 5th position to the Monegasque.
We stopped quite early to separate the two cars’ strategies but it wasn’t enough to threaten Pierre.
The performance of the car was not satisfactory enough, especially with the hard tires. So we will have to see what was wrong today.
Charles Leclerc is gradually catching up with Lando Norris in the battle for the 5th position in the driver’s championship. Only 12 points separate them, with four races left in the championship.
