Charles Leclerc started from pole in Monza but finished second – and told how his race went…
Q: Charles, you didn’t win, but the tifosi greeted you very emotionally on the podium. What did you feel?
Charles Leclerc: The stage in Monza is incredible! Of course I wanted to win from pole. But it didn’t work. It wasn’t my day, but the podium makes it so much better.
Q: Could you have done something else to stop Max?
Charles Leclerc: We all had doubts about the pit stop when the virtual safety car mode was announced. But if I hadn’t driven into the pits, Max would have done it.
Unfortunately everything went wrong – I was driving in the pit lane when the virtual safety car mode was canceled so we couldn’t use it fully. From then on we were one step behind.
Q: At one point you were asked to shift more carefully and not to run the engine at maximum speed…
Charles Leclerc: The car behaved strangely when exiting the fifth corner, we tried to sort it out to avoid further problems. This did not lead to a loss of time, but driving the car became more difficult.
Q: Can we say that in Monza you were closer to the Red Bull than you were at the Spa. Is this weekend encouraging in terms of speed?
Charles Leclerc: Precisely. The failure at Spa worried us a lot as we lost badly to Red Bull both in qualifying and at the race pace.
In training this weekend, we were looking for a solution – and we were able to add it. On Saturday we battled for pole, although this was not expected, and the pace was much better in the race. This track is not quite suitable for our car, but overall the weekend was positive.
Q: What do you think of the safety car at the end of the race? Probably you were waiting for the reboot to compete with Max?
Charles Leclerc: Of course I wanted to announce a reboot. I saw that the car had been removed and I was sure we were about to start. But that didn’t happen.
Q: The virtual safety car mode was removed during your pit stop. If it had taken longer, could you have beaten Max?
Charles LeclercA: It would be very difficult anyway. Maybe Max’s gap had widened a bit and we had tried to finish on that Medium set.
Q: This year many have openly criticized Ferrari’s strategy. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the decisions made in Monza?
Charles Leclerc: We made mistakes throughout the season. You have to get rid of them. But I don’t think the decision to change tires during the virtual safety car wasn’t wrong.
Yes, we have made this decision. But no one can know in advance when this regime will be removed. If I hadn’t gone into the pits, Max would have made a pit stop and had the same problems. No one is to blame here. Just a bit of bad luck. The biggest problem is that we didn’t have enough speed.
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
