Leclerc disaster, only 14th: "Wrong strategy? My fault, but there was no pace"

A race to forget for Leclerc, who finished in fourteenth place at Silverstone , second to last if we consider the various retirements and accidents. The strategy adopted at the start immediately affected his race, which was already difficult due to the changeable weather in England. The Monegasque, in fact, decided to return to the pits after the formation lap, done in the pouring rain, to remove the intermediates and put on the yellows just before the green light, when the sun was shining. A choice that proved fatal, as it relegated him to the back of the pack for all 52 laps. The Monegasque explained his decision to Sky Sport: "I'm not happy, but it was my decision. The first two sectors were dry for me and the third was very wet. I thought that with the sun the track would dry out more quickly, but it wasn't like that. So it was the wrong choice". Then he failed to make a comeback: "The thing that worries me most is the pace. From that moment on he was just not on me, because I think Hamilton was going quite fast, much faster than me for sure. For a few races I've been using a fairly extreme set-up that pays off in the dry, I thought it would pay off even more in the wet. I think I've had my answer."

Podium narrowly missed: Hamilton fought until the last lap to take third place in front of his home crowd. Despite managing to worry Hulkenberg, there were also problems with the SF-25: "It never stays still and we would like it to stay a bit more still. In the low speed corners it becomes very difficult to turn. It is also difficult to find the balance, you always try to change something but it is very complicated. In terms of strategy, in the end we lost several positions, three or four and this made our race much more difficult, but we earned some good points". If the race and qualifying did not go as expected, the whole weekend is not to be thrown away. On Friday, in fact, there were concrete improvements on the two cars: "Free practice was positive. I was up there, I was much happier with the balance of the car in the dry and then in qualifying we were much stronger, I felt much more at ease", he explained to Sky Sport, "The set-up direction we chose is not good for these conditions, but I think there are many positives even in a race like this, even if it didn't go great. You can draw a lot of lessons because I think I know how to explain to the team what I don't want to have in the next car. What we have now makes it very difficult to drive, especially in these conditions"

At the end of the race, Vasseur defends Leclerc's decision to change tyres before the start: "It was a difficult race from the first lap, when Charles took the gamble of coming in straight away to put on slicks. He had a strong feeling, but after that the whole race was very difficult. We were always on the limit between intermediate tyres and slicks". Commenting on the performance of the two cars in the race to Sky Sport, the Ferrari team principal focuses on the positive things of the weekend: "The pace wasn't that bad, it was good apart from McLaren. It was difficult to overtake, but we weren't the only ones struggling. Let's take the positive aspect of the weekend. We made a step forward in dry conditions. For the championship, we are increasing the advantage over Mercedes, but the goal is to win". The Frenchman then returns to talk about Leclerc's outburst on team radio after qualifying: "Sixth place in qualifying is not a disaster, but when you are first in Q2 it is normal to be disappointed. Charles was angry, but it is normal to make mistakes. We have to work and improve."