'Mixed feelings' for Leclerc after Singapore fightback

Charles Leclerc had a strong race in Singapore on Sunday, but was still up against if after problems in qualifying left him starting out of position from ninth place on the grid.

Leclerc had looked to be one of the top two drivers on Friday together with McLaren's Lando Norris, but suffered setbacks on Saturday including a deleted lap for exceeding track limits in the final round of qualifying.

That came after a red flag for his Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz crashing out of the session which meant there had only been time for one push lap before the chequered flag. Without it, Leclerc ended up consigned to P9 on the grid.

That made the race itself very hard work as he was stuck behind Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg for a long spell at the start. It was only once he was finally in free air that he started to make up ground.

"We had a frustrating first part of the race where we couldn’t do anything but just wait, and then once Nico and Fernando pitted I could push," he explained. “We had good pace, we stopped and [had] a really strong second stint.

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After he made a late pit stop, he managed to pick off Lewis Hamilton on lap 50 thanks to the Mercedes having stopped much earlier and now suffering on worn tyres as a result.

"That brought us back to P5, so on that I was really happy," he said. However he wasn't able to then catch George Russell in time to pick up fourth as well.

"I pushed quite a bit and towards the end of the race, when it was time to overtake George, my rear tyres were not in the best shape and we didn’t manage to gain that position,

"We did a good job anyway," Leclerc felt. "However it's a bit of a disappointing weekend. It’s mixed feelings." However his boss, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, felt that Leclerc had more to celebrate today.

"We could not really expect more than this fifth place from where we started," he said. "Charles was matching Norris for pace and Russell was not that far in front at the end."

Leclerc had blamed the tyres for his his qualifying problems, but on reflection had a different view on what the trouble had been when he spoke to the media on Sunday.

"Looking back at it, yes the tyres were not exactly in the right window, but this happens very often in qualifying," he said. "The main issue was me locking up into Turn 1 and going wide and having track limits and a bad lap.

“With hindsight, I think I was probably the one to blame yesterday," he said. "It happens: there will be qualifying that we do well and qualifyings where you do a mistake, especially when you have only one lap and then you pay the price.

“The only problem is that to not do a lap in Q3 here in Singapore is probably the track where you pay the price the most. If I look at the weekend as a whole, I paid the price for the mistake of yesterday.

"I’ll get it right sometimes and I’ll get it wrong sometimes, and yesterday I got it wrong," he said. “We maximised our potential today and our race execution was really good.

"Today I think we did a really, really good job and I think there wasn’t anything on the table to do better," he stated. "If I look only today, I feel like we’ve done a really, really good job."

Sainz also had a compromised race after his qualifying exit left him starting just behind Leclerc on the grid and getting swept out wide going into the first corner.

"Today was about damage limitation," he said. "We took a risk by pitting very early, but we made it work to the end, gaining some positions. We knew our pace was solid and I enjoyed some good overtakes on track

"It was a challenging race, but we leave Singapore with a sense of disappointment," he conceded. "Now there is a gap to reset and come back stronger for the last races of the season.

"There are still a lot of points in play," he noted. "We need to maximise every weekend."

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