Charles Leclerc says he “loved” the second part of a Singapore GP that saw him charge to fifth place from ninth on the grid.
However he didn’t enjoy the “nightmare” first part, when he got caught behind Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso, and lost a lot of time.
After they pitted and he had a clear track Leclerc eventually made a late stop for the hard tyre.
With fresher rubber than those ahead he was able to pass Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton, before closing up on George Russell in the final laps. However he couldn’t get past the latter and had to settle for fifth.
“Yeah, I did,” he said when asked by formu1a.uno if he’d enjoyed the race. “From the end of the first stint to the last laps, I loved it. The first 25 laps were a nightmare, because I was just a sitting duck behind Fernando and Nico.
“And I was just hoping that they had to box very soon because of [the cars] behind, but it never really happened, and they went very long. And I just had to wait.
“But overall, it’s been a good race from that moment onwards. As soon as they pitted, we maximised our points. We just paid a little bit price of a bad quali yesterday.”
At one point during the race Leclerc mentioned his brakes on the radio: “That was a concern. I mean, not a concern, but that was something we had to manage, and we knew it before the weekend.
“I think everybody on the grid had to manage the brakes, so we weren’t the only ones. This was a little bit tricky, but we did a good job on that.”
Asked if the weekend represented a missed opportunity given Ferrari’s strengths on street tracks Leclerc acknowledged that the opposition was also strong.
“I would say yes, but looking back at the pace of the McLaren, and of Max, I’m not sure how many points have we missed today,” he said.
“George definitely, I think we had the car in order to finish in front. I didn’t check again the pace of everybody, but what I’ve heard about Lando’s pace, I don’t think we quite had that in the car, and I don’t know where the others were behind him.
“So a few points lost. I think it was a good recovery today. But again, we paid the price of a bad quali. It will happen that I do mistakes on the Saturday, and I’ll have good qualifying also sometimes. But today I paid a little bit of a bad Saturday.”
“Actually I would like also to come back on things I said yesterday,” he noted. “I obviously said the tyres were not in the right window, which they weren’t.
“But looking back at it, there’s been plenty of times where you had the tyres a bit out of the window, and you still have to do the job as a driver.
“And eventually I didn’t do the job as a driver yesterday. So I think the blame was more on my side yesterday in quali to not put a lap in, and today I paid the price of that.”
