Leclerc relieved with recovery drive in Sepang after everything went ‘wrong’

Charles Leclerc conceded "everything that could have gone wrong...did go wrong" after dropping to last in the early stages of his race in Sepang, before he recovered to finish fourth.

Like his team mate Lewis Hamilton, the Monegasque managed to make his way back through the field to finish solidly in the points for Ferrari, despite a chaotic race that included contact, a strategy error and even a puncture.

Ferrari initially made the wrong call when the race finally got underway in wet-dry conditions, opting to put both drivers on the soft compound tyre. The track was still too wet, and as both fell back down the order, overtaken by those fitted with intermediates, Leclerc was called in to pit.

That was not just to get rid of his slicks – contact with Nico Hulkenberg had left him with a puncture and front wing damage. A slow pit stop to change his front wing and swap to the intermediates saw the Monegasque driver emerge in last position.

“I’m not sure how much more we could have done in terms of position with a completely smooth race to be honest," Leclerc explained.

"Everything that could have gone wrong in the first half of the race did go wrong, everything that could have gone right though in the second part of the race went right for us.

“At the end of the day, I think P4 on my side was the best I could do. I didn’t have a good feeling with the car, had quite a lot of inconsistencies and just struggled to use the maximum potential of the car and then obviously the first part of the race was very, very tricky with the slick tyres first, and then with the puncture and the broken front wing.

“And then just trying to save what we could save, and P4 at the end of the day is a good result considering the first part of the race.”

Hamilton dropped to 17th after starting on the softs, but managed to score an unlikely podium, meaning Ferrari extended their advantage over McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship, and marginally closed the gap to Mercedes.

The twin recovery drives showed the Ferrari had decent race pace in the mixed conditions, although the strategy calls made the Grand Prix more difficult than it could have been.

However, at a weekend where there was plenty of off-track noise regarding the future of Team Principal Fred Vasseur to filter out, Leclerc was proud of his result – but admitted the team need to learn from their mistakes.

“Relatively happy that we have done I think the best we could do at a weekend like this. But if we look back at the race, I think it is one of those races where the end result is maybe the maximum we could have done.

“But as a team there are plenty of things we need to learn from and do better next time we find ourselves in these conditions. But anyway, I’m happy we have a good race here and hopefully that stops a little bit the silly rumours that there are on the team.

“Fred is doing absolutely everything in order to bring back the team to the top, and we are all doing that, and to see all of these headlines in the last few days haven’t been nice at all.

“We are very united, that is the most important and I just hope we are back on the top step of the podium as soon as possible.”