Charles Leclerc started the season looking like a real contender for the title, but with strategy errors and technical issues being Ferrari’s downfall, the Monegasque driver saw his title hopes disappear.
Ferrari keep pace with, and even beat Red Bull in qualifying, with Carlos Sainz claiming two pole positions while Leclerc himself has eight, however when it comes to race day the Scuderia simply cannot compete some weekends.
The 25-year-old has stated that Red Bull’s ability to manage their tyres in difficult conditions has been one of the main causes in the differing race pace.
“There’s the tyre management, as we’ve seen in the last races where this is a bit more difficult. We need to identify all the causes of it,” he said.
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“But this is continuous work that we are doing, and that we are getting better at. I think we’ve seen it this year, ion some races’ we’ve been very good with tyre management, the only thing we need is to be good in very specific situations.
“Like in Japan, Sunday was a but cooler, obviously it was raining also. And then when it’s a bit of an unexpected situation, that’s where we are probably not as good as Red Bull is. So on that we need to work,” Leclerc explained.
When speaking about the Grand Prix in Austin, where Leclerc managed to pick up a podium, despite a grid penalty for a change of engine components setting him back to P12 in qualifying, Leclerc cited tyre management for one of the reasons he could not compete for the win.
“We had the pace, but then we had a little bit too much deg towards the end of the race. But we’ll work and, at the end, P3 starting P12 is not that bad.
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“With tyre deg you keep working with the steering wheel, which makes it even more difficult, but it was quite a nice battle with Checo [Perez] and then later on with Max [Verstappen],” he explained.
Alongside tyre management, Ferrari have been the causes of their own downfall, with poor strategy calls putting Leclerc and Sainz out of contention for race wins on numerous occasions, but Leclerc is confident of the team improving in this aspect.
“I think for communication, strategy et cetera, that’s been a few races now that we’ve been working on it, and I’ve already seen positive signs, so that is good,” he told the media.