Charles Leclerc’s season continues to be one of disappointment, as the Ferrari driver endured yet another race to forget on Sunday at the British Grand Prix.
Starting from fourth, Leclerc was seen by many as a potential candidate for the podium; however, it was quickly discovered in the opening phase of the race that Ferrari just didn’t have the pace to challenge the top three.
Leclerc spent the majority of his first stint defending fourth place from George Russell, who was managing his Soft tyres extremely well.
Leclerc and the vast majority of the drivers started on the Mediums, following a general belief amongst the paddock that the Softs weren’t going to last long.
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This ended up being completely incorrect, as Russell completed over half the race on his set of Softs.
Despite tyre degradation having clearly been very low at the Silverstone International Circuit, Leclerc was bizarrely called into the pits by Ferrari on Lap 18, where he was fitted with a set of Hard tyres.
Leclerc found it incredibly difficult to heat the tyres up, something which cost him valuable time.
Pitting so early cost the Monegasque massively, as he lost several places later in the race when a Safety Car allowed the majority of the drivers who started on the Medium tyres to complete their pit-stop.
Had Leclerc stayed out until the rest of the leaders pitted, then he would’ve likely finished on the podium.
Being on used Hard tyres at the end of the race really hurt Leclerc, who fell to ninth behind Williams’ Alex Albon.
It was a disastrous afternoon, with a lot of his issues having been caused once again by a shocking strategy by Ferrari.
Leclerc admitted after the race that he wasn’t sure why the team pitted him “so early”, especially as it left him on the “backfoot” for the rest of the Grand Prix.
“We didn’t have much degradation,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.
“I think just the pace of the car wasn’t really there today.
“We were struggling in the first part of the race. On the first stint, Mercedes and McLaren were really quick.
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“George was very fast. I managed to keep him behind, then I don’t know what happened why we went in so early. But this, I don’t have the full picture of it. I don’t want to comment on it too much.
“Then obviously, that puts us a bit on the backfoot because everybody continued on the medium that didn’t have much degradation. I tried to stay more or less at the same lap times as the guys that were still out on the old medium, to then push once they stopped.
“But then, unfortunately, once they stopped during the safety car and they gained all the positions. Not the greatest race today.”