Leclerc suggests brake woes denied Red Bull fight

Charles Leclerc was left “disappointed” after the Bahrain Grand Prix, feeling his brake issues during the race denied him a position ahead of at least one Red Bull car on the podium.

Leclerc began to bemoan his struggles with the brakes early on and was spotted running wide at Turn 10 on several occasions.

The issue steadily worsened as the race wore on and after starting from second place on the grid, Leclerc dropped down to fifth place on lap 11.

The Monégasque driver was overtaken by Sergio Perez in the Red Bull, the Mercedes of George Russell and teammate Carlos Sainz before the problem stabilised.

“It was impossible in the first 15 laps, the issue was getting a lot worse over every lap,” Leclerc told media including RacingNews365.

“I was basing my braking for Turn 9 and 10 with the previous lap, which obviously felt too late all the time, but the issue was getting a lot worse.

“So every time I would brake three metres earlier, I would still lock up, then at lap 15 or 20 the issue stabilised.”

Leclerc states second place was on the cards

Leclerc made a small recovery in the latter stages as he managed to get back past Russell for fourth place after the Briton made a mistake at Turn 10.

“The team told me on the radio that it was more than 100 degrees [Celcius] at least between my front right and front left [brakes], which is huge," explained Leclerc.

“So at that moment, I understood that the best thing I could do was just to bring the car home to the chequered flag.

“We started to be more consistent when the issue didn’t get worse and every lap, which was helping me to be more consistent.

“Considering everything to finish fourth is a really good effort. But I'm obviously very disappointed with the results.

“I honestly think that second place would've been very possible.”