A weekend that started off in the worst way possible ended up going in the same direction. Charles Leclerc did not go beyond seventh place at the Miami Grand Prix, suffering from the first to the last lap due to a Ferrari that is far from the one which, one year ago, was able to challenge Red Bull and Max Verstappen for the race win until the very last lap at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida, USA.
After Saturday’s mistake in the final moments of the qualifying session, Charles Leclerc started from seventh place and tried to recover positions in the first laps using a set of Medium tires, but in vain. The Ferrari number 16 immediately seemed to be in difficulty, even overtaken with surprising ease by the excellent Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.
Charles Leclerc struggled a lot in the first stint, unable to make overtakes. After mounting the Hard tires, the Monegasque’s pace improved slightly, but not enough to defend against Lewis Hamilton’s attacks.
“We have a lot of work to do, really a lot. We have a car that only works well with tires in a narrow window. When you are in ideal conditions, the feeling is quite good, but as soon as you come out for a moment, it becomes very difficult,” said a disappointed 25-year-old Ferrari driver at the end of the Miami Grand Prix
“With the Mediums, at the start of the race, I couldn’t get the car to turn. Zero. Moreover, I had to be careful not to make the front tires slide because the first stint had to be long, and that conditioned my whole race. Then things improved slightly with the Hards, but we need to work hard to have a more consistent car, especially on race day.” – the Monegasque driver continued.
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In addition to the difficulties related to bringing the tires into the correct operating window, Charles Leclerc suffered a lot in the fast corners due to the floor hitting the track:
“There were many problems today. Now we will look at the whole car because I think there was something wrong. I say this mainly because the car touched the ground a lot in the fast corners. It was a situation that occurred more today than in the rest of the weekend. That’s why we need to understand. Moreover, the tire usage window for us is very small, and as soon as we come out of it, we struggle a lot. So we need to look at all of this.” – the Monegasque driver pointed out.
“It’s very difficult to understand our situation. In qualifying, we’re up there fighting, while in the race, we can only accept being overtaken by others to manage the tire and get the most out of what we have at the moment. It’s a difficult type of mentality to have. But we won’t give up anything, and we hope that the updates can help us take a big step forward. Then in Imola, qualifying is important because it’s difficult to overtake. So we’ll see, but the priority is to improve the race pace,” concluded the Ferrari driver at the end of the Miami Grand Prix.
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