Charles Leclerc ends Silverstone crestfallen, but prefers to focus on Carlos Sainz's first Formula 1 victory
Once again in the 2022 season, Charles Leclerc was in a position to win a race and ended up out of the running thanks to a, at best, questionable decision by Ferrari. Even so, Leclerc preferred not to talk much about the situation before talking to the team. He preferred to deal with teammate Carlos Sainz's victory at the British GP this Sunday (3).
Leclerc was leading with 12 laps to go when Esteban Ocon had problems and caused a safety car. Ferrari did not call out Leclerc to change the hard tires used for soft ones, something they did with Sainz - just as Mercedes did with Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull did with Sergio Perez. The disappointment with fourth place is obvious.
"It was cool on one hand [the fight at the end], but on the other hand... I had hard tires and everyone else was on soft, so I had a lot of difficulties. In the end, I did the best I could, but it wasn't enough. It's disappointing," he said.
"I need to look at the complete picture of the race, because I only know what the picture of my race is. In the car, you can't get the big picture. I feel I lost time in the first stint and the first part of the second stint, but I will understand when I look at the full picture of the race," he followed.
"Point is, I don't want to focus on my disappointment, but on Carlos' incredible victory. A first win in F1 is always special, and it's also great for the team and for him. He has been working on his confidence and today it showed," he finished.
The 2022 Formula One season returns next week at Paul Ricard for the French GP on July 8-11.