Charles Leclerc admits he felt "frustrated" by his P2 result at the Singapore Grand Prix after seeing positives in Ferrari's performance during the race. The Monegasque started the event from pole position, but had a difficult start and found himself being overtaken by the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. Leclerc applied pressure to Perez during the latter stages of the race, yet could not get close enough to make a move and the victory ultimately went to the Mexican. Perez held on to his win despite being handed a five-second time penalty after the Grand Prix for a Safety Car infringement.
Leclerc "frustrated" after praising Ferrari performance
When asked after the race if his second place felt like a reminder of the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix – where he lost out on victory to then-teammate Sebastian Vettel – Leclerc insisted that it did not, but admitted that he was disappointed by the outcome. "Every race has a different feeling. But the frustration is there, obviously," Leclerc told media, including RacingNews365.com . "The pace was really good today. Unfortunately, we had a bad start and from that moment onwards we were a little bit on the backfoot. "I tried to put quite a lot of pressure on Checo. But you overheat the tyres pretty quickly, and then you drop a little bit, so it was very difficult to stay always on the gearbox of Checo." Leclerc feels that Ferrari showed some positive signs in terms of performance during the event at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. "The performance was there. I also think that the choices we've made today were the right ones," he added. "And as I've said before this weekend, I want to use these last few races for us to get better on the execution of the race, especially, and I feel like it's a step forward this weekend. "We need to do other steps forward. But it's a good step in the right direction. And on that I'm happy. But of course frustrated with the second place today."
Start issues still need to be analysed, says Leclerc
In regards to what caused his bad start, Leclerc was initially unsure whether it was triggered by his own error or another factor. "I don't really know yet, whether it's me who did mistake in the way I do things or if it's something else, we'll have to analyse it," the 24-year-old said. "The only thing I felt is that I had a little bit a bit of wheelspin, and lost it and I saw Checo had an amazing start, so that's the way it went. But it's like this." There are further issues from the race that Leclerc believes need to be analysed, such as differences between the pace of Ferrari and Red Bull at certain stages of the Grand Prix. When asked if he had more pace than Perez when running slick tyres during the second half of the race, Leclerc explained: "At the beginning, yes, but I pushed quite a lot. "Then in the last 10 laps, I think he started to pull away again. But overall, I think the performance was also good on the Inters [Intermediates], it’s just that obviously it was not super wet, so the tyre temperatures will go pretty high and then I will lose quite a bit of grip whenever I was behind him. "But then after [a] Safety Car, we will always be pretty strong. "But I think there's also things that we can analyse from this race, because Red Bull seems to be very, very good after six, seven laps. We are very, very good in the first six, seven laps, and we'll look into that."
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