Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc finished the United States Grand Prix in fourth place at the Circuit of the Americas, which can be considered a real statement of intent from the Maranello team, as Charles confirmed that at one point he was even targeting a podium finish.
The Monegasque driver started the race from fourth place, taking advantage of a grid penalty for Valtteri Bottas and held that position in the opening laps, while at the same time being able to create a solid gap to the first McLaren car (Daniel Ricciardo). However, Charles did not manage to stay close to the trio in front of him, despite the fact that in the second part of the race he started to reduce the gap to Sergio Perez ahead of him in third place and felt he had the pace to put pressure on the Red Bull.
“A very, very good race. A very boring race on my side but on the other hand it has been a very positive race for us. I mean the performance was incredible today and it’s great to see that on a track where we did not expect to be that quick. So a great surprise. I think all the upgrades are working as we want and it’s looking good for the future, so hopefully we can keep up that momentum for the rest of the season. The performance was just very, very good and I could see Sergio in front of me – only 10 seconds ahead – and actually in the last two stints I think we were a little bit quicker than them, so I was thinking about the podium but we just didn’t quite make it.” – he explained.
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Charles Leclerc finished the United States Grand Prix with a gap of almost 25 seconds in front of Daniel Ricciardo, but warned that Scuderia Ferrari should not get too carried away with their hopes of beating McLaren in the race for third place in the constructors’ championship.
“Let’s be realistic, it’s still very close even if in a race like this it can make us think that we are quite far ahead but it’s not the case. We need to keep working very, very hard. It’s going to be a close fight, but I have to say we have only had two or three upgrades this year and those two or three upgrades have made us make a big step forward and this is looking good for the future.” – he added.
Yet the Monegasque driver took added satisfaction from his performance – even if he knew it didn’t receive a huge amount of airtime – given the challenge COTA provided from a fitness perspective: “It’s been incredibly difficult. It’s probably one of the most physical races I’ve done. Singapore is difficult but it’s a different kind of difficult, it’s just very warm. But here physically with all the first sector, with the last sector too, with the bumps, with the heat, it was very physically demanding and the last `0 laps were very difficult to be honest.” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.
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