It’s a Charles Leclerc extremely smiling and satisfied the one seen at the end of a United States GP finished in fourth position at the end of a very high level race.
The Monegasque was surgical at the start, managing to maintain fourth position, and then shone when he left the medium Pirelli to move to the hard ones. With the harder compound Charles exalted himself and clearly won the duel with Daniel Ricciardo relegating the Australian of the McLaren in fifth place 24 seconds behind.
In a weekend finally not conditioned by penalties and setbacks on the grid Ferrari was able to experience the goodness of the new hybrid system on the field and the steps forward were seen in direct comparison with McLaren.
In fact, both Leclerc and Sainz managed to finish ahead of the drivers of the Woking team, thus allowing Ferrari to further reduce the gap in the Constructors’ standings.
“At every lap I tried to give my best” Leclerc told Sky Sport F1 HD microphones. “Third place was not a utopia. Perez didn’t run away in the hard conditions and I was extremely motivated in the car. I tried and I must say thank you to everyone, both on the track and in Maranello, for the developments brought to the track ”.
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Charles then wanted to underline that this year, despite all the attention being paid to the 2022 project, the few updates that have been brought to the track have always allowed the SF21 to progress.
“The updates have always made us take a step forward and this is good not only for this year, but also for the confidence for 2022. Everything is going well for now and I am very happy”.
For Leclerc, the Austin weekend was a real surprise. The 2017 F2 champion, in fact, thought that the Texas track was more favorable to McLarens and instead the final result highlighted the Prancing Horse.
“We expected to suffer this weekend and instead it was one of the best races of the year. Despite having obtained a fourth place it was a great surprise, especially for the race pace ”.
Before leaving, Charles wanted to highlight another reason for pride. The Monegasque, in fact, underlined how in the race the tire management was practically perfect and how he worked on this aspect to avoid making the same mistakes made on the occasion of his first season with the colors of the Cavallino.
“This year I think I have taken a step forward in tire management. I’ve been working on it for two years because I knew it was my big problem in 2019 and I threw away a lot of results because of me. Now I think it has become my strong point ”.
–
