Charles Leclerc says Ferrari doesn’t understand how it became so competitive in race trim at the Dutch Grand Prix, after being surprised to finish third at Zandvoort.
Ferrari had a tough weekend before the race, with Leclerc qualifying sixth and Carlos Sainz failing to reach Q3, but both cars made impressive progress on Sunday to rise to third and fifth respectively. Leclerc was able to hold off Oscar Piastri for the final podium spot and crossed the line just 2.5 seconds behind Max Verstappen, but is at a loss as to where Ferrari’s performance came from.
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“That is a very good question, and I think the best question is also to understand why we were nine tenths off [in qualifying] and suddenly pretty strong [in the race],” Leclerc said. “The car is exactly the same. [In qualifying] we’ve been struggling like crazy. [In the race], we were strong. And these are the kind of things that we’ve got to work on.
“I think as much as we analyze every bad surprises we have during a season, we also need to understand when we do something good. For now, I don’t think as a team we have the explanation. So it’s a great result. I’m really happy to be standing on the podium. And I think it’s a really good surprise. However, we’ve got to understand in order to perform more often at our best.”
Piastri had been running ahead of Leclerc at the start of the race but Ferrari pulled off an early first pit stop to undercut both the McLaren and George Russell. While Piastri quickly cleared Russell after his own stop he couldn’t get past Leclerc, something that also surprised the Ferrari driver.
“It wasn’t [easy], because my engineer was telling me about Oscar’s lap time, which when he was in free air was quite a bit quicker than me, I think nearly a second. Then when he got closer, I started to push a bit more and gain five tenths. And I think with the dirty air, he probably lost three or four tenths.
“He managed to stay behind and to put me quite under pressure for two, three laps, but then couldn’t stay there because of the overheating. It was a really good strategy. I did not expect to keep that third place until the end, but we did a really good job as a team. I don’t think there was anything more we could have done.”
With the Italian Grand Prix at Monza this coming weekend, Leclerc admits he is finding it tough to have an idea how Ferrari will perform as it will bring upgrades to its home race.
“Again, it’s very, very difficult to predict. If you will have asked me that question [on Saturday], I will have told you it will be very difficult. [Now] is much better. If we manage to understand what’s going on with our car, then I’m quite optimistic about the future. But for now, we don’t quite have the understanding yet.
“We’ve got an upgrade coming very soon. Now I can say actually because Fred [Vasseur] said it, so it will be in Monza. And that, I hope, will help us and help us close the gap. But until the upgrades, I always said that the priority for us was just to do a damage limitation. And [at Zandvoort], we were targeting P6.
“Realistically, I think on paper, that’s what we were fighting for. However, after three, four laps, the pace was there. And we could do P3, which is a good surprise again. So good points. However, now I just hope that the upgrades helps us to do a step forward.”