Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc admitted that he joked over his team radio on the last of of today’s Bahrain Grand Prix that he was suffering from a power unit problem. The Ferrari number 16 scored an incredible race win in the first round of the 2022 Formula 1 championship, his teammate Carlos Sainz finished the race in second place and completed a perfect weekend for the Italian side at the Sakhir circuit.
Charles hinted at the incident which took place three years ago in Bahrain, when the Monegasque driver was racing in his just second Formula 1 Grand Prix for the Maranello team and was very close to scoring his first F1 win when a technical problem dropped him back to third at the end.
As he was going through the second sector on his final lap of today’s Bahrain Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc jumped on the radio to declare that once again, he had a problem with his F1-5 car.
“Something strange with the engine, something strange with the engine,” he said, before stating moments later “I’m joking”.
Speaking to Sky F1 after the event, Charles Leclerc explained: “I did a bit of a joke on the radio on the last lap saying there was something strange with the engine. The engineers, I’m pretty sure, didn’t like that. But it was fun, I had that in mind for the last 10 or 15 laps of the race, hoping there were no reliability issues. Then I saw that Max [Verstappen] had the issues and I was like, ‘come on, please, stay with me until the end’, and it did.” – the Ferrari driver said.
Charles Leclerc was challenged at various points during the race by Red Bull Racing Dutch driver Max Verstappen, and was forced to contend with a Safety Car restart during the dying stages of the event. While Max Verstappen suffered from a Power Unit issue and had to retire from the race, Charles Leclerc does not feel that the 2021 F1 world champion could have passed him even if his car was healthy.
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“I don’t think so, but you never know. At the restart, I did a really, really good restart so I think it would’ve been difficult for him to overtake. After that, the rhythm was very strong. Whenever I had a margin I knew I could more or less manage the gap behind.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.
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