Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has admitted that the Maranello team “shouldn’t expect” to be in a position to once again challenge Mercedes during this year, despite the fact that Charles came very close to winning the 2021 British Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver needed just three more laps in Sunday’s British Grand Prix to score a completely unexpected win after taking the lead in the first lap, following the crash between title rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at Copse. Charles Leclerc sat as much as nine seconds clear of the pack at one stages during the race, despite managing an engine issue, having seen Hamilton drop back after serving a 10-second penalty for causing the first-lap collision.
But Mercedes driver Hamilton was able to fight back and hunt Charles Leclerc down, ultimately passing him at Copse with three laps to go to record his 99th grand prix victory.
Charles Leclerc felt some frustration over his late defeat after coming so close to a first win since Italy 2019, and while he said the performance proved Ferrari’s strength, he did not think it was a sign of things to come through the rest of this year: “Going into the weekend, there was absolutely no hope of fighting for a win here in Silverstone. This shows how great a job we are doing as a team. It’s not an easy situation, but the team is working extremely well. We are working extremely well as a team, and we have shown that today with this second place. Now we need to keep on working, because that’s what we want to do consistently: fight for the win. It’s great to be fighting today with Lewis, but we shouldn’t expect to be in that position for the rest of the year. For that, we need to keep working.” – he explained.
The result helped Scuderia Ferrari take a bite out of McLaren’s advantage in the fight for third place in the constructors’ championship, reducing the gap to 15 points.
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