A collision with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll led Leclerc to spin out on the primary lap of Sunday’s race in Melbourne for his second DNF in three races.
Leclerc had a torrid begin to 2023, with an engine failure forcing him to retire on the season opener in Bahrain and leading to a grid penalty for utilizing too many unit elements. energy within the second spherical in Saudi Arabia.
The Monegasque’s solely consequence thus far this season was a seventh-place end in Jeddah, leaving him tenth within the league with simply six factors. That is his worst begin to the marketing campaign with Ferrari.
“Pissed off, clearly,” summed up Leclerc after the race.
“It is the worst begin to a season ever. Simply six factors or eight factors, I do not know what that’s in complete. Irritating.”
Regardless of his frustrations, Leclerc did not blame Stroll for his first-round incident.
“On the first nook I did it straightforward and on the third I did not actually plan on passing Lance,” he defined. “Then I noticed that he needed to brake very early due to Fernando in entrance who braked too early.
“So I let off the brakes and bought alongside Lance after which Fernando needed to brake much more. So Lance bought between me and Fernando and he could not recover from and we had a contact.
“I am not pointing the finger at Lance as a result of I feel he simply had no selection as soon as Fernando slowed the automobile down for the second time.
“For me it was simply unattainable to see if Lance was staying behind Fernando. He was proper in between, clearly I did not assume he was there. So it is extraordinarily irritating.
With Carlos Sainz’s five-second penalty dropping him from fourth to twelfth, Ferrari failed to attain factors in Australia as their depressing begin to the season continued.
Ferrari stays fourth within the constructors’ standings however is already almost 100 factors behind Crimson Bull and 30 factors behind third-placed Mercedes.
However staff principal Frederic Vasseur insisted there have been nonetheless “positives” to take from the weekend.
“When you take a look at the weekend, we’re upset with the consequence however the degree of efficiency was there,” Vasseur advised C4.
“We did not put the whole lot collectively however the tempo was good (within the race). We needed to make an additional pit cease, however aside from that the tempo was okay.
“It is an actual step ahead in contrast to some weeks in the past in Jeddah. Now now we have to make one other cease in Baku.
