Charles Leclerc: "We were 1s per lap slower. We have to find something otherwise we will struggle"

Charles Leclerc: “We were 1s per lap slower. We have to find something otherwise we will struggle”. Charles' post-race comments.

Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has endured a heartbreaking retirement from the first round of the 2023 Formula 1 championship, the Bahrain Grand Prix. The SF-23 car was clearly far behind Red Bull in terms of race pace, but Charles was doing a great job to secure a podium finish for the Maranello team at the Sakhir circuit. He was lapping in the podium positions for the majority of the Bahrain Grand Prix and appeared set to collect silverware.

This was until his SF-23 car started to lose power and had to stop on the side to the final two corners on lap 40. The Italian side has confirmed that the retirement was caused by an engine failure, stating, “we lost the engine.”

“The power just went off, it’s too bad because we were there. Our race was good until that moment. We couldn’t do more than third place though because Red Bull is really strong. It was a complete engine shutdown, I couldn’t do anything after that. I cannot say it feels good. Obviously there was quite a lot of work on that. First race reliability problem, it’s not good.” – Charles Leclerc admitted at the end of the race.

“We were even one second per lap behind sometimes. They [Red Bull] are in a different category so we have to work, find something because that way we will struggle. We had no race pace. We have to make step forwards, they found something because it has never been seen. In qualifying we were there but in the race they give us 1 second per lap…” – a disappointed Charles Leclerc concluded after his retirement in the 2023 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix.