Charles Leclerc satisfied with his race in Suzuka despite a poor qualifying

Ranked 8th in the Japanese Grand Prix after a disappointing performance in qualifying on Saturday, Charles Leclerc managed to climb up to fourth place, narrowly missing out on a podium finish to his teammate. At the restart after the red flag, Leclerc was able to overtake Hamilton, despite the British driver making a surprisingly good start on hard tires. However, he later failed to get past Piastri. He later made a blatant error on lap 26, running off track at turn 9 after missing his braking point, thus giving a huge opportunity to Sergio Perez.

But the Monegasque was able to take advantage of a terrible strategy error by McLaren: the latter called Lando Norris to the pits at the same time as him, which allowed him to stay ahead of the British driver and just in front of George Russell when exiting the pits. Big mistake by McLaren, who was trying to overtake the Monegasque.

Charles Leclerc then battled with Carlos Sainz at the end of the race for the podium. Ferrari signaled to the Monegasque that they are fighting against Norris, not against Sainz. But the Spaniard is faster and therefore overtakes his teammate, allowing him to secure his third podium in three races, and his 20th of his F1 career. Leclerc sees Sainz closing in at just four points in the championship, even though he missed a Grand Prix due to appendicitis.

A good strategy with tires

On his side, Charles Leclerc won the honorary title of driver of the day in Suzuka. Rather surprising considering his lack of pace compared to his teammate, but which is probably due to his comeback from eighth place. One must indeed admit that he was able to highlight strategic tire management and an intelligent race. After the restart of the race, he managed his medium tires brilliantly for 25 laps.

His team made the decision to equip both cars with new medium tires, with the aim of covering the remaining distance with just one additional stop. This strategy allowed Leclerc to take the lead of the race for a few laps before switching to hard tires with 27 laps remaining, just as his rival Lando Norris made his second stop.

Despite a very long relay, Leclerc maintained a sustained pace, not wasting time holding back his opponents and preferring to manage his tires to maximize his chances. It is thanks to this strategy that the Monegasque driver managed to climb from eighth to fourth place.

« By just looking at today’s race, I am quite satisfied,” said the Monegasque after the race. « Our pace, tire management, communication, and strategy were all really good. However, what prevented us from achieving a better overall result mainly stems from our qualifying performance yesterday,” he regretted.

(e) From Australia, we struggled to get the tires into the right temperature window during the warm-up laps in qualifying, which is something we had never had trouble with before, so we really need to focus on that in the coming days to make sure we get everything set up in China », explained the driver with the number 16.

A great drive from @Charles_Leclerc today 💪 strong race pace and four positions gained 👊 #JapaneseGP 🇯🇵 #F1 pic.twitter.com/302KzNglJm

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 7, 2024