Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has pinpointed the outcome of his home Grand Prix in Monaco as the most difficult of the 2022 Formula 1 season which has just ended.
Charles took pole position with a great lap on Saturday and kept the lead of the race after the start in soaking wet conditions on the streets of Monte Carlo back in May, but lost three places due to a mistake from the Maranello team’s pitwall: while most of the drivers went from the full wets directly to dry tyres, Ferrari opted to put Charles on intermediates only to call him back to the pits the laps later to mount the slick tyres, which drivers used until the end of the Monaco Grand Prix.
The strategy decision sent Charles Leclerc outside the podium in front of his home fans, with the Monegasque driver sitting in fourth place and without any possibility of recovering the ground lost given the track characteristics of the Monaco street circuit. What should have been an easy win therefore turned into another disappointing result in his home Formula event.
At the end of the Monaco Grand Prix, the Monegasque driver was clearly upset, saying over team radio: “No words. The season is long, but we cannot do that.”
During a recent interview for French newspaper L’Equipe, the Ferrari man was asked to look back on the season that has just ended, in which Charles Leclerc started the year with two amazing race wins in the first three rounds, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Australian Grand Prix, only to see his world championship chances slip away from him due to a series of strategy mistakes and most importantly several power unit technical failures in the middle of the campaign, which allowed rival Max Verstappen and Red Bull to run away with both the World Championships in dominant fashion in the second part of the season.
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Charles Leclerc was asked about the most difficult moment of the year, between his errors in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and the French Grand Prix or the wrong strategy decisions made by the Maranello pit wall in the British Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix, which led to two easy wins being lost. The Monegasque driver explained that “it’s not an easy question to answer because both have been difficult to live with. Once again, I didn’t lose many points. But for France, obviously it’s harder: I lost 25 points and that wasn’t good. Especially at that point in the season, we were still a little bit in the race for the championship and that hurt. The other mistakes, the ones you can’t necessarily control, are not easy to live with.” – Charles Leclerc added.
The Ferrari driver will be hoping to end the series of bad results in his home race next season. Two years ago, Charles did not even get the chance to start the race, despite once again taking pole position in front if his home crowd: the Maranello team could identify an issue with his driveshaft after the Monegasque driver crashed in the final stages of the qualifying session on the streets of Monte Carlo, hitting the barriers at the Swimming Pool section.
However, given the fact that he was in the lead after the start of the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver admitted that missing out on the race victory at home was the most difficult moment for him accept on a personal level in the 2022 Formula 1 campaign:
“It was really not easy but Monaco, for me, will remain the most painful moment. Another home Grand Prix that didn’t go well. Unfortunately, something always happens to me in Monaco and this year was no exception. Especially because we had managed to do the hardest part well, the start in the rain, but by making the wrong choices, we unfortunately lost the victory.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.
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