Charles Leclerc: I’m surprised I could finish it

In Mexico City, Charles Leclerc started from pole position, but was involved in an incident on the first lap and finished third…

Question: Charles, congratulations on your fourth podium this year. Could more have been achieved without the incident at the beginning?
Charles Leclerc: The front wing was damaged in the first corner, I was told we lost 10 or 15 points of downforce, but after that the race went well.

Question: Sergio Perez considers what happened in the first corner a racing incident, but what do you think?
Charles Leclerc: I think the same. I couldn’t go anywhere. I tried to stay as far to the right as possible, as close to Max as possible, but there was no room left. Sergio probably didn’t know I had Max on my right. At a certain point it became clear that a collision could not be avoided. In fact, I’m surprised I was able to finish it afterwards.

I am very happy to be on the podium. In qualifying the car was fast, I won pole, but on Sunday the speed was not enough to win. When working on next year’s car we will do everything we can to make it look better on Sunday.

Question: What are the expectations from Brazil?
Charles Leclerc: We get another stage with the Saturday sprint. This season we have performed well on the speed flights, I hope it will be the same next week.

Question: It seems that the Hard tires did not suit your car, after the restart the pace dropped…
Charles Leclerc: This once again confirms the weaknesses of our car: it is very sensitive to the settings and as soon as we leave the optimal range we immediately lose speed. This is exactly what happened with Hard.

At first I thought everything would be fine, but the race was stopped with red flags, the tires had cooled down and after the restart they stopped working. It’s a shame because before everything was very good, especially on Medium. We’ll figure it out, we need to understand what exactly went wrong and improve it in the future. But not in the short term.

Question: Is this your first podium in Mexico? How does it feel? What’s the difference between Plan A, B or C in this race?
Charles Leclerc: I won’t talk about our plans, but yes – this is my first podium in Mexico City, which is always fun. It’s a shame that the fans booed me, but you can understand them – it’s a shame when your main character retreats in the first turn. But like I said, I couldn’t help it.

Q: Can you confirm that you had your front wing replaced during the red flags? And did this change the feel of the car?
Charles Leclerc: Believe me, a car always drives better with an intact front wing than with a broken one. At that time I didn’t know what else was damaged in the car.
When I saw Perez’s rear wheel hit my front wheel, I thought: that’s it, I’m done. But then I drove two or three turns and realized that everything wasn’t so bad.

Yes, during the red flag suspension we were able to repair the front wing, but perhaps there was more to it than that.