The Monegasque driver gave Scuderia Ferrari its first podium of the season by finishing third: a result built thanks to an exceptional start that allowed him to briefly take the lead.
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The newlywed took advantage of a perfect reaction to the lights going out to slip ahead of the two Mercedes of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, despite them being largely dominant in qualifying.
The Ferrari irresistibly climbed to the front row to then resist Russell for a long time before strategy allowed the Silver Arrows to complete the Grand Prix with a single stop.
The best possible
After the finish, Leclerc admitted that the race had been particularly difficult to read due to the new energy operation of the cars: “It was a very tricky race. At the start, nobody knew what to expect with the battles, with the energy management, and it’s even harder for overtaking, for defending, because you don’t know when the battery will cut out on the straight and there are big speed differences.”
Despite this strategic and technical complexity, the Ferrari driver was pleased to have briefly taken the lead in the opening laps: “It was a challenge but I was happy to come out of this battle in first place, it set us up well for the rest, but that only lasted for the first part of the race, and third place is the best result we could have hoped for.”
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A promising start
The lightning start of the Ferraris was also favored by a particularly fast lights-out moment, which surprised part of the grid : “The person who turns off the lights was tricky, because it went out very quickly and we were on the limit with the engine. It took everyone by surprise and it played in our favor, but that’s the game.”
In the end, Leclerc remains clear-headed about the current hierarchy. Even with a different strategy, he believes that Ferrari probably could not have beaten Mercedes: “I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong. It seems that Mercedes had more pace than us today, but not as much as what we saw yesterday. But I don’t think we could have beaten them.”
Despite everything, this podium reassures Ferrari: the gap observed in the race turned out to be much smaller than the one seen in qualifying, an encouraging sign for the rest of the season.
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