Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has insisted that his mistake at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was not a consequence of the pressure being applied by Red Bull.
Leclerc was running behind the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez when he span at the Variante Alta, allowing Lando Norris to take a podium finish while the Monegasque ultimately ended the race in P6.
The 24-year-old had recently pitted onto a fresh set of Softs in a bid to set the fastest lap, and the undercut he executed on Sergio Perez when the Mexican did the same thing put him to within prospective striking distance of the second Red Bull car.
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But he took too much kerb at the chicane, compounding what was already a disappointing day for the Scuderia after Carlos Sainz was spun out by Daniel Ricciardo.
The championship leader said after the race that he was being “greedy” in his pursuit of more points, and he reiterates that he was simply pushing for more than what the car was capable of at that moment.
“It’s one of those mistakes where it is a bit more the mental approach you’ve had at that particular moment of the race,” he said, quoted by Motorsport.com.
However, he has discerned why and how he made the error, so has vowed to rectify it going forward.
“But I’ve always been strong in knowing exactly which particular feeling I felt at what moment of the race, and know how to correct it. So yeah, it’s a mistake, but I’ll learn from it and won’t do it again,” he added.
It was put to the four-time race winner that his mistake was a legacy of the pressure being applied by the imperious Red Bull that weekend, but he emphasised that he had been under pressure from Verstappen and Perez all weekend, and he had been able to successfully affront that pressure prior to his mistake.
“Obviously we’ve had pressure not only [during the race] but for the whole weekend and I don’t think I’ve done many mistakes before,” he affirmed.
“It was the mistake that cost me a lot and I’ll learn from it. But no, on my side there was no particular added pressure whatsoever.”
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While he may have missed out on a podium, Leclerc takes the glass half full approach, insisting that the ramifications of the spin could have been a lot worse than they were.
“With the mistake actually, I have been a bit lucky because I’ve only lost seven points again to what I could have scored,” he explained.
“But it’s seven points that could be valuable at the end of the season and every point counts when you are driving for the title. So yeah, it won’t happen again.”
The 24-year-old leads the Drivers’ Championship by 27 points from Verstappen after the Dutchman’s dominant victory in Imola.