Ferrari, Charles Leclerc makes an admission about Carlos Sainz’s victory in Melbourne

Charles Leclerc spoke at the press conference on the eve of the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit. Here are the words of the Monegasque of Ferrari, reported by the Italian version of motorsport.com.

“I would be lying if I said I was happy thinking about this aspect, the wins are important and the points at the end of the season are even more so; but at the same time I want Ferrari to win as soon as possible. Carlos did an amazing job and won, now it’s up to me to react and hopefully win the next race. In F1 so many people base their opinions on the’last race, but if I look at my last eight or nine weekends, I think they have been on average a very good level”.

“Unfortunately, in most of those races it was not possible to win, but I am aware that it is up to me to be there whenever the opportunity arises, and I was not in Singapore and Melbourne. Finally, I would like to say that the fact that Carlos will not beà in Ferrari next year does not add any pressure”.

“I think every race is very important, at this stage we are building a clearer picture of what our weaknesses are and what our strengths are. I think this track will allowà to understand something more about the values on the field in the high-speed sections, this will probably helpà a little bit more; to place our position in relation to the opponents in that type of corners”.

“The data tell us that Red Bull this weekend should be in front, especially in the race. We have some strength on tracks where there’è graining on the front axle, in Australia this aspect è was important, but I don’t think we will find those conditions again here in Suzuka, so we should see Red Bull again in the position of the first two races”.

“For our part, we want to bring home the maximum possible points, today we are only four points behind Red Bull, a margin that does not represent our real value in terms of performance, but which denotes how a particularly good job has been done in maximizing what weò have at the moment”.

“There are always weaknesses on a car, we know where we need to improve. I think the overall package needs to be faster, in qualifying with new tires we are quite close to Red Bull, we struggle a little bit more with used tires”.

“What happened in qualifying è my responsibility. I was coming back from very good qualifying, but in Australia on Saturday I did not do a good job and this also impacted the race becauseé we were forced to anticipate the first pit stop because of Lando and Oscar. The second stint è was very long, so è it was a little bit more difficult to manage that phase of the race, but again, è it was all related to qualifying. I tried something in Q3 that didn’t work, that’s all”.

“At one point I è was asked not to fight and, honestly, it made sense. I don’t think I would have had the opportunity anyway because Carlos and I ended up with a little bit different strategies, only at one point in the race, when I had new tires, I could have pushed harder, but at the same time I knew I had to complete a lot of laps with that set of tires, so I think it made sense for everybody not to overdo it. And, anyway, considering the positions I qualified in, I don’t think I could have made it”.

“We should be closer than what we saw last year, for sure. We have done a lot of work on this car to improve the performance in high-speed sections, and in general è a more predictable single-seater than last season”.