Leclerc: Early pit stop in British GP 'put us on the back foot'
Charles Leclerc reckoned that Ferrari's decision to pit him after just 18 laps in Sunday's British Grand Prix put him on the back foot for the remainder of the race.
Leclerc launched his race from fourth on the grid where he managed to remain during his opening stint, just holding off the Mercedes of George Russell.
But rather than extending his run on the medium tyre and follow the strategy adopted by its main rivals, the Scuderia pitwall called in Leclerc, a move he suggested that was done to preempt an undercut from Russell.
"In the first stint we didn't have a great pave compared to the Mercedes and the McLaren," a disappointed Leclerc explained.
"I managed to keep George behind, I think that George was maybe planning to come in if we were staying out, or probably the team decided that it was better to be aggressive and pit.
"So that’s' why we stopped so early, but that put us quite a bit on the back foot for the rest of the race.
"Then I was on the hard trying to manage the tyres as I knew I had to go to the end of the race, but then unfortunately there was a Safety Car and everybody passed us there.
"It was then a race of DRS until the end, and no overtaking. So a disappointing race today".
Leclerc said that he was called in by Ferrari as he exited the penultimate corner, right before the pit entry, which in the heat of the moment only convinced him that his team was making the right call.
"I knew that the team had a good reason for me to pit if they were calling me that late, so I came in and didn't have much time to think.".
Leclerc admitted that Ferrari always expected to struggle around Silverstone's high-speed corners, given the relative weakness this season of its SF-23 on such layouts.
"We knew that this track was going to be one of our worst tracks just because of the high-speed corners. This is one of the weaknesses of the car," he said.
"It was kind of a positive surprise to be so close yesterday. I mean timing-wise because I didn’t do a great lap in Q3. But we were very close to Red Bull, I think on the time lap.
"But then in the race, we have been struggling a lot and mostly in high-speed corners."
©Ferrari
But Leclerc added that the SF-23's sensitivity to windy conditions, such as those that were in force at Silverstone, was also an issue on which the team needs to focus.
"There’s still a long way to go because at the moment we seem still very sensitive to the change of conditions," he said. "When I say change of conditions, I mean mostly the wind.
"When we have a change of wind, our car becomes extremely difficult and on that, we have made steps forward. But there are still quite a big steps to do."
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