Leclerc baffled by tyres: Lewis somehow made them work. I felt like I was driving on ice

After qualifying, Charles Leclerc praised the set-up experiments and discoveries that should help the Scuderia improve its wet-weather performance. Sunday offered him a chance to back that up, but ultimately the words did not translate into results. Leclerc is at a loss to explain why he could not get his intermediate tyres up to temperature.

Lewis Hamilton gained 11 positions on the opening lap. His lightning start helped him get well ahead of Leclerc. The Monegasque made no significant progress — and, fortunately, did not lose much ground either — but that was hardly cause for satisfaction. Ferrari must aim higher.

The Maranello team took the chequered flag, waved by Neymar, in seventh and ninth places. However, a penalty for causing a collision with Liam Lawson dropped Leclerc one place.

“The execution was okay, but the pace was on the first stint horrendous for me. I mean, particularly at the start, we just have so much struggles in putting those tyres into temperature. It’s unbelievable,” said Charles Leclerc of Sunday’s race. He was clearly frustrated. “It’s unbelievable, and it’s just undriveable.”

Ferrari could take inspiration from one side of the garage on Saturday, while on Sunday the other side showed how certain things could be done better. “Lewis definitely found a way because he had an incredible start, but for me it was just like driving on ice. And then later on I had the pace, but I had very little free air, and we also lost a lot of time in the straights. So the first stint was very poor.”

“The second stint on the soft was actually pretty good, but, yeah, I mean, not much free air. And at the end, by being patient and making the right choice later on, we end up P7 behind the top three teams, and it is what it is,” he said, noting that Ferrari had saved a pit stop by switching straight to intermediates.

The results will please nobody at Ferrari, but at this stage the Italian team must focus on just two things: securing second place in the constructors’ championship and applying everything learned over the weekend to its preparations for next year.

“I think, again, there is so much to be learned from. In qualifying, we learned a huge amount yesterday,” Leclerc noted. “I think for qualifying there are things that we can do better and that we can learn from yesterday.”

“For today, still in qualifying, I felt like we are going into the rain and it’s like a coin flip, and maybe we end up on the right side of things or we end up on the— it’s just a complete disaster to drive. So we’ve got a lot of work to do on that side,” he said.