Leclerc seeks teamwork, Sainz says duel 'as it should be'

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Ferrari's Charles Leclerc pledged to go one place better in tomorrow's Austrian Grand Prix than he had managed in the sprint race on Saturday.

Starting from second place on the grid, Leclerc struggled slightly at the start of the 23-lap dash and was squeezed out by Red Bull's Max Verstappen going into the first corner.

It also gave Leclerc's team mate Carlos Sainz the chance to pass him, and the ensuing battle between the pair allowed Verstappen to open up a huge advantage over the first few laps.

Read also: Verstappen wins Austria sprint ahead of duelling Ferraris

By the time Leclerc had won the battle for second, Verstappen was out of reach meaning he keeps the top spot for tomorrow's race which will see Leclerc once again alongside him on the front row of the grid when the lights go out.

"It was tricky," Leclerc told the media in parc ferme after the end of the fast-paced race. "Obviously the first part of the race was all about managing, but Max was very quick.

"He was pushing quite a lot at the beginning so I was trying to control my tyres to attack at the end," he explained. "Then we had a small fight with Carlos.

"Towards the end I started to push, I was gaining a little bit, but it was very close overall," he added. "Tomorrow is the race and hopefully we can have as good of a start as today and put a bit more pressure on Max."

Asked if he was hoping for more team collaboration to take the fight to their Red Bull rivals, Leclerc replied: "I really hope so."

However Sainz had no regrets about pressing Leclerc hard in those opening laps, and clearly had no plans to do anything different tomorrow.

"I had a good start with a couple of fights at the beginning, first with Max into turn 3 then with Charles into turn 3 again a bit later in the race.

"It was good fun like it should be – good racing," he insisted. "But then I overheated the tyres a bit running behind Charles, so I had to back off to recover them and finish the race."

Sainz said in his view Ferrari needed to find more speed from the F1-75 if they were going to be able to carry the fight to Verstappen in the Grand Prix.

"We'll need to improve the pace a little bit, because he looked to be very, very strong at the beginning of the race. Then little by little, it looked like we were starting to match him.

"Tomorrow is a longer race and we will go through different compounds, so I think anything can happen," he added. "The important thing is that we are both in the fight and we will try our best to beat Max.”

Today's result gives Leclerc seven championship points and Perez six, but Verstappen still edges away from them with eight points for the win. But the real points come tomorrow meaning there is still all to play for.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.