Charles Leclerc: “If I’m happy with 4th place, I might as well stay at home” | 2024 Japanese GP. Charles Leclerc made a great comeback at Suzuka, limiting the damage .

Mission accomplished
A comeback it had to be, and a comeback it was for Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka International Racing Course on Sunday. After the disastrous qualifying session yesterday, the Monegasque driver started from the eighth spot on the grid and managed to climb up to fourth place, behind the two Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez and his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz, who overtook him on the track in the last phase of the race. Charles Leclerc was particularly perfect in managing the tires during the first stint, managing to build the possibility of a race with only one pit stop, the only one among the leaders to do so.

“I am very happy about the race,” said the #16 of Maranello to the microphones of Sky Sport F1 at the end of the Grand Prix, “but honestly, this year in the race we are strong, and the feeling has always been there. In Bahrain, we had problems with the brakes and we didn’t show our pace, but we made a nice leap forward. I’m happy about this.” However, the assessment of the weekend must also take into account yesterday’s qualifying, and, in this perspective, the evaluation inevitably changes.

Work to be done
“If we look at the weekend as a whole, I’m not happy,” admitted the native of the Principality, “because if I were happy with a fourth place, then I should stay at home. The qualifying yesterday did not go well, and in Australia too, I struggled to get the tires into the right window.” A Charles Leclerc in crisis on the single lap is quite unusual, and even he is aware of the need to reverse this unexpected negative trend.

“Qualifying has always gone well for me, but for two races now, I’ve struggled to get the tires into the right window, and I’m paying the price for this both in Australia and here, but the race pace is there. Now we have a week to work and to understand why, from my side of the garage, I’m not doing well on the out lap in qualifying. When we manage to sort out this aspect, I’m sure we will achieve great satisfaction.” – he pointed out at the end of the 2024 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix.

“It seems stupid to me to say I’m happy with my qualifying lap and then finish eighth,” Charles Leclerc concluded, “because I’m not like that. The lap is good, but the tire grip doesn’t give you what you expect because there are these small differences in the out lap, and I have to work on this. Now I need to focus on this, but every time I’ve worked on something, then it has improved quite quickly, so I’m not too worried.” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.