“The Safety Car ruined the plans and McLaren was impressive”

Charles Leclerc gave Ferrari its second podium of the weekend by taking third place in the Miami main race behind Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.

It was a race in which the differences were very small due to the very low degradation, but Ferrari’s race could have taken a terrible turn from the beginning, when Sergio Pérez almost overtook the two SF-24s and even his teammate by overbraking at the start.

“It was very complicated,” admitted the Monegasque at the end of the event: “Pérez was inside me and the truth is that I didn’t make a good start. When I released the clutch, I skidded. I saw Pérez on the right and he had little grip. I saw that was blocking and I thought we were going to touch each other. Luckily, it didn’t happen and we didn’t suffer any damage. I don’t know how Carlos was able to avoid Pérez and he took a big risk.

Once the start scare had passed, Leclerc concentrated on his stints. The medium lasted less than expected and later, safety car exit to the track to allow Logan Sargeant’s crashed Williams to be removed, ruined Ferrari’s plans.

“At that point we were able to focus on ourselves. We did quite well, but again we lacked a bit of pace. We did everything we could and we were a bit unlucky with the timing of the Safety Car. “It wasn’t ideal for us. In the end I had older tires than the drivers who were in the first positions, but at most we could have been second today. The McLaren F1 was impressive today.”

Leclerc also congratulated Lando Norris, who at 24 years old won his first Formula 1 race. But the victory of the British driver should set off all the alarms and it is clear that The updates introduced by the Woking team have workedso from now on all the leading teams will also have to deal with the papaya-colored cars.

“First of all, I am very happy for Lando, who has achieved his first victory in F1. Many times he had been close, but for various reasons he had not achieved it. This weekend he showed that he was very strong.”

“Already in Q2 he did a lap that made me say: ‘Oh man. Today they are very, very strong’. We expected them to be strong here, but not that strong. Lando clearly deserved the victory. Now it’s our turn to try to bring updates! and recover,” concluded Leclerc.