Charles Leclerc reflects on his mistake in F1 French GP which ended a sure podium and a potential win, as Mattia Binotto adds his view.
It was a hectic fight for the F1 French GP lead between Ferrari’s Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the early stages until the mistake from the Monegasque which ended his race. He handled the charge from the Dutchman until then handsomely.
While Verstappen pitted on Lap 17, Leclerc continued on and lost control at Turn 11 entry to smash onto the barrier. Post-race, he admitted his mistake of taking too much into the corner and putting a wheel on a dirty part which resulted in the loss of control.
He was hard on himself and was blunt to state that he doesn’t deserve the title if he continue to make silly mistakes like these. “I think it’s just a mistake,” said Leclerc. “Tried to take too much around the outside, put a wheel probably somewhere dirty, but it’s my fault and if I keep doing mistakes like this then I deserve not to win the championship.
“I’m losing too many points, I think seven in Imola, 25 here because honestly we were the strongest car on track today. So yes, if we lose the championship by 32 points at the end of the season, I will know from where they are coming from. And it’s unacceptable, I just need to get on top of those things. I was thinking too much and I lost the rear.
“It’s been a very difficult weekend for me, I struggled a lot with the balance of the car, I like oversteery cars, but when it’s warm like this it’s very difficult to be consistent and I made a mistake at the wrong moment. I go through the same process all the time, try to analyse – the snap was a bit of a weird one, so I’ll look into the data and try to understand if there’s something that I don’t know yet. For me it’s a mistake and that’s it,” summed up Leclerc.
This loss of points means Leclerc is now 63 points behind Verstappen with 10 races to go. It was also loss of points for Ferrari, who are now 82 points behind Red Bull. Team boss Binotto praised his run until the crash which he agreed to be a mistake indeed.
“I think we had a good performance, with tyre management,” said Binotto. “With tyre degradation, again, I think we had a bit of an edge on Red Bull too because, after 15 laps, Charles was doing well and he was gaining a couple of tenths, three tenths per lap on Max.
“Verstappen had to stop very early, and we would have extended certainly the stint. It was a little mistake from Leclerc. It happened. I think what I said to Charles was that we make our life a bit more difficult, but I think it will get even better. We will enjoy more in the future,” summed up Binotto.
Here’s what happened with Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-french-grand-prix-leclerc-smashes-into-the-wall-from-race-lead.1739242987495300391.html
Here’s how F1 French GP panned out