Ferrari was unable to have a meaningful say in the battle for the podium at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix, so Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had to settle for fourth and fifth place, respectively. Thus, the Maranello team far exceeded the preliminary expectations – the fact that even Lando Norris, who finished second, bet before the race that Ferrari would overtake them at the checkered flag by 35 seconds shows how much.
Leclerc’s situation was greatly complicated by the fact that he lost positions at the start – together with his teammate Carlos Sainz – and ended up closing back to fourth place with a one-stop strategy. From his statement in Monaco, however, he could see that this did not help them much either, but they had no other choice.
“I think we didn’t find the pace, especially on the hard tires, which is a bit strange, because since the beginning of the year, the strength of this car has been that it could be in any conditions, it handled all compounds well,” Leclerc was quoted as saying by Motorsport.com . “From this point of view, today is an exception, because as soon as we switched to hard tires, we immediately lost half a second. We will investigate what went wrong at that stage.”
Ferrari did not have strong competition, but Leclerc still finished fourth. (Photo: John Ricky/Anadolu/Getty Images)
When asked by television journalists, the Monaco driver also addressed whether the D-plan, mentioned several times during the race, really covered the one-stop strategy.
“Not necessarily. If you mark your favorite option as Plan A, the other teams will know what it is. This is why we are changing the order so that the other teams have no idea about our strategies,” he snapped. “But the fact is that Plan D was not what we wanted, but because of the safety car there was nothing we could do about it.”
After five races, Leclerc has two podiums and three fourth places, which puts him in third place in the championship. Ferrari still holds second position in the Constructors’ Championship with a reassuring lead.
