Charles Leclerc managed to find the positives and believes Ferrari maximised their performance in the 2024 Singapore GP, with a fifth-place finish all they could have asked for after a disastrous showing in qualifying.
The Monegasque started Sunday’s race down in P9 after his lap in Q3 was deleted due to track limits. Despite a nightmarish opening stint that saw Leclerc stuck down the field behind Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg, he managed to claw back and come within touching distance of pipping George Russell for fourth.
Leclerc looked to the positives about the Ferrari showing in Sunday’s race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, stating that he and the team did all they could do to salvage what was a difficult situation.
“The last laps I loved it. The first 25 laps were a nightmare because I was just a sitting duck behind Fernando and Nico,” Leclerc told accredited members of the press, including Total-Motosport.com.
“I was just hoping that they had to pit very soon because I was behind, but it never really happened. They went very long so I just had to wait.
“Overall, it was a good race from that moment onwards. As soon as they pit we maximised our points, we just paid a little bit of the price for our qualifying yesterday.
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“Going back on what I said yesterday, I obviously said that the tyres were not in the right window, which they weren’t. But looking back at it there’s been plenty of times where you have the tyres out of the window and you have to do your job as a driver.
“I didn’t do my job as a driver, so I think the blame was more on my side yesterday in qualifying and today I paid the price for that.”
Missed opportunity for Ferrari?
While Ferrari’s showing on Sunday was hampered by what happened on Saturday, Leclerc admitted he wasn’t sure if things would have gone better even if they had performed in qualifying given the pace of the McLaren’s and Max Verstappen.
“I would says yes, but looking back at the pace of the McLaren’s and Max, I’m not sure how many points we missed out on,” said Leclerc.
“I think we had the car in order to finish in front of George [Russell]. I haven’t checked everyone’s pace, but from what I’ve heard of Lando [Norris] I don’t think we had that in the car.
“A few points lost, but I think it was a good recovery today. We paid the price for a bad qualifying.”
As for Ferrari’s chances of finishing atop the constructor’s championship, Leclerc believes expectations should be tempered given the pace McLaren are showing.
“As much as the last two races were good, I think we’ve always been saying we need to be careful to not raise expectations because McLaren still have a better car than us by quite a bit,” said Leclerc.
“We have some tracks where we will be very close, others where we will be further away, so I don’t see us in the fight. But if they make mistakes then we might end up in the fight like we are now.
“I mean, before today we were quite close despite never really having the fastest car, apart from Monaco maybe.”
