Despite suffering with high tyre degradation in both GP3 Series races at the Hockenheimring last weekend, Charles Leclerc returned to the top of the championship standings, finishing fifth in race one and third in race two.
The ART Grand Prix driver was running second up until the final lap of the opening race, but his tyre degradation saw him drop to fifth at the chequered flag, as he was passed by team-mates Nyck de Vries and Alexander Albon as well as Koiranen GP’s Matt Parry.
Leclerc was again running second in the second race before being passed by Jack Aitken, but held on this time to the podium position, and now sits three points clear of team-mate Albon in the championship heading into the summer break.
“It was a good weekend overall,” said Leclerc on art-grandprix.com. “Unfortunately I did a mistake in qualifying which cost us pole position but the pace was there. We had a 3 places penalty on the grid for race 1, which did not help either.
“I was running second until the final lap but I suffered from tyres degradation so we ended up P5.
“I had a good start on race 2 and I could move up to second after the virtual safety car. But we had tyres degradation again so I had to let Aitken pass me in order not to lose too much time and score as many points as possible.
“After a difficult weekend as we had in Budapest, it feel really good to be back on the championship lead, even more before summer break!”
