Leclerc: Lack of answers after Spain is ‘worrying’

Charles Leclerc says the whole Ferrari team is not satisfied after missing its targets this year and admits a lack of answers following his poor performance at the Spanish Grand Prix is “worrying”.

Leclerc failed to score points at the last round in Spain and is currently seventh in the drivers’ standings after seven rounds.

At the same point of the season last year, he was nine points off championship leader Max Verstappen and second in the standings. This year he is 128 points adrift.

“Overall, I think all the team is not satisfied with the performance we are showing on track and it is very far off our expectations at the beginning of the season,” Leclerc said ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix when asked if he was worried about the team’s lack of progress. “We are very clear with ourselves and this is very clear to us.”

Leclerc started 19th on the grid in Spain after struggling with the performance of his car in left-hand corners during qualifying and recovered to 11th in the race after Ferrari changed the gearbox and rear suspension on his car overnight.

However, when the suspect parts returned to the team’s factory in Maranello, Ferrari could not find an obvious problem with the car, meaning Leclerc goes into this weekend uncertain of what went wrong.

“We need to understand these things and for now we don’t have the reason, which is a little bit more worrying,” he said. “That’s where we need to push, to understand the reason of it, because obviously the feeling was really bad.

“To be honest, it’s the first time it has happened in my career. If you look at all the left-hand corners that is where I was struggling and I said it straight away after qualifying — we can see that on data clearly that I am losing 0.65s or 0.7s in all the left-hand corners. But there are no real reasons for it yet, so on that I cannot say much more to be honest.”

Yet Leclerc insists he still trusts in Ferrari to develop its way back to the front of the grid.

“Looking ahead, we need to just keep pushing, bring upgrades as quickly and regularly as possible, which is our aim now to try and close the gap to the guys in front and also the gap in terms of race pace, because even though I struggled a lot on Saturday, Sunday wasn’t great either.

“So that’s where we are trying to push at the moment. What gives me confidence, though, is that there is a clear direction that we want to work and improve. This is what makes me believe in the project.”