Despite achieving his third consecutive podium of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the Singapore Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc has been left ruing his poor start to the race, which the Monegasque driver stated put him on the back foot for the remainder of the race.
Leclerc’s work to secure pole position on Saturday at the Marina Bay Street Circuit had been undone by the time the Scuderia Ferrari driver reached turn one as the Monegasque suffered from wheel spin at the race start, allowing Sergio Perez to claim the lead of the race.
The Ferrari driver was able to stick with the pace being set by the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver but was largely unable to threaten the Mexican for the lead of the race. In an attempt to overtake Perez in the pits, Ferrari and Leclerc opted to do the opposite to the race leader, which would see the twenty-four-year-old pit before the Red Bull driver. With Leclerc struggling to generate any grip on his out-lap, the attempt at the undercut would prove unsuccessful as Perez, who pitted a lap later, would rejoin the race still in the lead.
Even with the late possibility of a time penalty being applied to Sergio Perez for a safety car infringement, Leclerc was unable to close the gap to the race leader and would finish seven and a half seconds behind Perez, the deficit would later become just two and a half seconds as Perez was handed a five-second time penalty for the safety car infringement.
Putting the disappointment of once again failing to convert pole position into the race victory to the side, Leclerc stated that he felt the team had taken a step forward in terms of their race execution.
“Our pace was really good today so it’s a shame to finish second. We had some wheel spin at the start and didn’t get away as well as Checo (Perez). That put us on the back foot. I pushed to put pressure on Checo but my front tyres got a bit too warm and he started pulling away. As I’ve already said, I want to use these last races to improve our execution of races and I think that we made a step in the right direction today.”
Carlos Sainz Jr: “Today I lost all feeling with the car”
Carlos Sainz Jr’s third-place finish saw the Ferrari driver head to the podium for the eighth time this season but the Spaniard has offered a frank admission that he lost all ‘feeling’ with his F1-75 around the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Sainz’s struggles were evident for all to see as by the seventh lap of the race the Spaniard trailed his teammate by over five seconds and was facing pressure from Lewis Hamilton behind in fourth place.
The one-time race winner was able to resist the pressure from the seven-time world champion and Hamilton’s mistake, which saw the Brit head nose first into the barriers at turn seven, would allow Sainz to race away from any further pressure.
Moving onto the medium compound tyre Sainz was able to recover some of the performance that he struggled to find on the intermediate tyre and by the safety car restart was able to stick closer to the pace being set by the front two. Sainz was left untroubled by his former teammate Lando Norris and would cross the finish line in third place to claim Ferrari’s fourth double podium of the season.
Despite his struggles on the intermediate tyre, Sainz stated how he was pleased to come away from a race in tricky conditions without making any significant errors.
“It was quite a strange race for me to be honest. I had a good start and managed to get Lewis, but for some reason I struggled with pace in the first stint with the Intermediates and only towards the end of race did I manage to recover it. But by then it was already too late. We need to look into it because I’ve been quick all weekend and today I lost all feeling with the car. On a positive note, we managed to do a race without mistakes in these tricky conditions, which was not easy today, bringing home a solid result with both cars on the podium. We’ll go at it again in Japan next week.”
