“We expected him to win the title,” Charles Leclerc congratulates Max Verstappen while underlining Ferrari’s goal for the last 4 races
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Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen (IMAGO / HochZwei)
Ferrari had a race to forget in Japan. Carlos Sainz, after qualifying third and very close to the two in front, crashed out on the first lap itself. Charles Leclerc briefly surged ahead of Max Verstappen at the start but was then once again relegated to second place after the first turn. When the race was restarted almost two hours later, Verstappen was able to retain his lead.
Leclerc ran fairly close to the Dutchman for the few laps. After both of their pit stops, Leclerc was still behind Verstappen. But then, the Monegasque began falling away, and quite dramatically as well, as his tyres completely fell apart. He was caught by Sergio Perez towards the end, and that would prove to be his undoing.
At the last chicane, on the last lap, the Ferrari driver locked up and ran wide, then came back onto the track as if nothing happened. This handed him a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, which demoted him to third (in the championship as well). With that, Verstappen sealed the title, ending the Monegasque’s championship hopes officially. But Leclerc knew it was over long before.
Charles Leclerc: ‘We need to use these last races to become a better team’
As per Formula 1’s official website, while talking about his day at the office, Leclerc first sent out salutations to the now two-time world champion, Max Verstappen: “A huge congratulations to Max for his second world championship. It’s obviously frustrating today, the pace was not there after four laps, but it’s like this.”
The F1-75 seems to have quite a bit worse tyre degradation than the RB18, which is a large part of their performance deficit. Leclerc especially struggled today: “From Lap 5 onwards, it was all downhill. [I was] really struggling with tyres; a bit like the last race, we are very strong warming up the tyre, but then after three, four laps, we just destroy them, [so] we struggled this time.”
Charles Leclerc concluded by saying: “Exactly, that’s the goal. I think Max’s title this year was just a matter of time, really – we expected him to win the title. Now we need to use those last races in order to become a better team and hopefully put in a bit more of a challenge next year.”
As for the penalty, the Monegasque accepted it, plainly stating that it was the right decision. He further added that he did not know it was the last lap. Now, with the championship officially wrapped up, as he and Carlos Sainz said before, the team’s goal is to perfect the execution on the weekend. Before the player break, it was not the performance that was losing Ferrari points. It was themselves.
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