After claiming a podium at the Austrian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc returned to Earth on Sunday at the British Grand Prix, as Ferrari found themselves fourth in the pecking order.
Starting from fourth, many expected Leclerc to be a contender for the rostrum; however, Ferrari’s race pace was once again below-par.
The Italians were slower than Red Bull, Mercedes and incredibly McLaren, who claimed a rostrum thanks to a stellar performance by Lando Norris.
Leclerc was forced to defend heavily from George Russell in the opening stages of the race, where he arguably moved under braking at Club Corner.
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Russell wasn’t happy with the Monegasque’s driving and immediately complained over the radio to the Silver Arrows.
“If that’s not moving under braking, I don’t know what is,” Russell complained to Mercedes.
Interestingly, the incident wasn’t investigated; however, even Leclerc’s race engineer warned him to stop moving under braking.
“No more moving under braking,” Leclerc was told by his race engineer.
Leclerc ultimately pitted very early in the race for a set of Hard tyres, something which massively cost him.
His pace on the hardest compound wasn’t great, something which saw him finish the race in ninth after being unbelievably overtaken by Williams’ Alex Albon.
Ferrari weren’t helped by a late Safety Car, which allowed several drivers to pit for the first-time in the race under the neutralised conditions.
Even if it weren’t for the Safety Car, a poor result was seemingly expected by Leclerc, who admitted after the race that the team knew the Silverstone International Circuit would be “one of our worse tracks”.
“There’s still a long way to go because at the moment, we seem still very sensitive to the change of conditions,” Leclerc said after the race, as reported by Motorsport.com.
“When I say change of conditions, I mean mostly the wind. When we have a change of wind our car becomes extremely difficult.
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“On that, we have made steps forward but there is still quite big steps to do.
“We knew this track was going to be one of our worse tracks. Just because of the high-speed corners, this is one of the weaknesses of the car.
“I believe we know why we are struggling. It’s clear for us we are pushing a lot on the development, especially for the high-speed corners.”