Charles Leclerc earned his fifth podium finish of the season with a P3 at the F1 Belgian GP. Although the Monegasque finished the race in the same place that he qualified, he had to fight hard to keep his position. Max Verstappen spent the entire race close to Leclerc’s rear wing, but the Ferrari had to pace to stay ahead.
Leclerc on keeping Verstappen at bay
Charles Leclerc was under pressure from reigning champion Max Verstappen the entire race at the Belgian GP. Verstappen has achieved considerable success at Spa in the past, winning the race three times. Leclerc had to put his Ferrari in all the right spots in the tricky wet weather conditions.
In his post-race press conference, Leclerc spoke about Verstappen’s constant presence in his mirrors in the rain.
“Max was behind the whole race within two seconds, so it’s never easy.”
The pace of the Ferrari has been consistently second or third best all season. Both the McLarens and the Red Bulls invested in race pace over qualifying speed, but Leclerc’s Ferrari had the upper hand over the Red Bull in the dry.
“I knew that the first part of the race was the trickiest one for us because we maybe didn’t have the downforce that McLaren or Max had, as they compromised a little bit in qualifying to be better in the rain today. But luckily, it dried up pretty quickly and then the pace was good.
“But still, Max was right behind the whole race, so I’m pretty happy that we managed to keep that third place.”
The pressure from Verstappen on his heels caused Leclerc to ask his engineer to “leave him alone” regarding the information he was being supplied. Leclerc touched on his perspective of this moment in his press conference.
“I mean, obviously the pressure is high, especially in those conditions because as soon as you are ten, 15 centimetres out of the right line, then it’s wet or greasy and you can lose the line and make a very big mistake.
“So, at one point I just told Bryan to leave me alone, but obviously he’s trying to give me the most information. Sometimes I need [it], today I didn’t and I let him know.”
Achieving a podium with Ferrari’s new rear end upgrades
While by no means have the Ferrari’s been struggling –with the two drivers only missing out on points in three races combined– they needed another push to close the gap to the McLarens.
The Ferraris brought a rear suspension upgrade to Spa in hopes of helping the driveability of the car. Leclerc commented on the effectiveness of these upgrades.
“I’m pleased with the steps forward we are doing, and I think we should all be proud about that because I know that behind that, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes from the people back at home for us to have this upgrade here.”
They have definitely taken a step forward. However, the gap to the front is still too large to properly challenge Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
“It definitely helped us to get the podium when you see how close it was with Max today. However, we are all aware that this is not enough, and we need to keep pushing in order to be closer to the McLaren. This is very clear for the whole team.”
Leclerc is still quite pleased with his result, taking home a substantial number of points.
“It doesn’t change that we shall be satisfied with what we’ve done this weekend.”
The sprint race format of the Belgian GP was not optimal for getting a proper handle on Ferrari’s new upgrades. Next weekend, the Ferrari drivers will benefit from three full practice sessions, which will help them gain the needed experience with this setup.
When asked if we will see a bit more of an improvement from Leclerc and the Ferraris, the driver stated: “I hope so.”
“Honestly, we’ve had what we expected with this upgrade and that’s really positive. We need to keep learning about how to maximise this new upgrade. It’s still pretty new, but it’s a good first weekend and I’m happy that we are on the podium to thank the whole team back in Maranello.”
Leclerc has his focus set on the next round in Budapest, hoping to get an even better result.
“We keep pushing and hopefully we’ll put soon a bit more pressure on the McLarens.”
