Charles Leclerc has openly admitted that Ferrari’s biggest issue at the recent British Grand Prix was the Silverstone International Circuit’s high-speed corners, which cost them valuable time.
Leclerc and Ferrari in general endured a miserable British GP, with the Monegasque driver having fallen from fourth to ninth.
Despite finishing ninth, he was still the top Ferrari driver, as Carlos Sainz finished 10th.
A late Safety Car cost both Ferrari drivers valuable places, as Leclerc and Sainz had completed their only pit-stop prior to Kevin Magnussen coming to a halt.
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It meant those towards the front of the field who were yet to pit managed to do so behind the Safety Car and remain ahead of Ferrari’s pair, much to the Maranello-based team’s frustration.
The SF-23 was simply just not good enough though, with Leclerc admitting that he just “didn’t have any speed”.
“The lack of speed is hard to digest,” Leclerc told Dutch media. “It looks like bad luck. Let’s say the timing of the safety car was not good for us, while it was favourable for many other drivers.
“But in the end, we just didn’t have any speed. It’s not that we had more tyre wear, but Mercedes and McLaren were stronger than us. I tried to push on the hard tyre after the safety car, but it wasn’t to be.”
Ferrari knew heading into the British GP that it’d be one of their weakest races of the season, due to their issues with high-speed corners.
Qualifying towards the front was actually a “positive surprise” for Leclerc, whilst the race went more or less as expected.
“This is very hard to understand,” Leclerc said. “We knew that this was going to be one of our worst tracks just because of the high-speed corners. This is one of the weaknesses of the car.
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“It was a positive surprise that we were so close yesterday. Not in terms of time, because I didn’t drive a great lap in P3, but we were very close to Red Bull, probably because of the timing.
“In the race we were struggling, especially in the fast corners. We know what the problem is and we are working hard to develop the car further and to improve that. Hopefully that will get better.”
Leclerc added: “There is still a long way to go, because right now we are sensitive to changes in conditions that you don’t see keen. By that I mean especially the wind. If it changes direction or speed, our car has an extremely difficult time.”