Charles Leclerc admits that Ferrari “lost a good opportunity to do something special” having just missed out on a podium in the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Monegasque driver started P9 after struggling in a wet Qualifying session before putting in a strong performance in the dry 50-lap race on the Las Vegas street circuit.
Leclerc’s charge included overtakes on Ollie Bearman, Oscar Piastri and Isack Hadjar in the opening stint, before passing Carlos Sainz after the Williams exited from the pits.
But Leclerc was undercut by Piastri through the pit stop phase and, although he challenged the McLaren driver in the second stint, he initially had to settle for sixth on-the-road.
However, post-race disqualifications for both Piastri and McLaren team mate Lando Norris promoted Leclerc to fourth, which was nearly a podium having fallen one-tenth short of beating Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver handed a five-second penalty for a false start.
“I’m not sure about the strategy. I had a bit of a feeling in the car that we did something wrong,” said Leclerc.
“I think Oscar was behind, he undercut us, I think there were other cars that were behind that undercut us, or nearly undercut us.
“It was a bit of a shame because we lost a good opportunity to do something special because I felt like the pace was there.
“Unfortunately on the second stint I had Oscar in front who had the DRS of Kimi and already I was on high downforce and it was nearly impossible to overtake on the first stint, I had to take massive risks.
“On the second stint, it was just impossible to overtake Oscar, he was way too fast. A bit of a shame for that second stint but I really enjoyed the first part. It was entertaining but very frustrated about the end result.”
Ferrari once again showed strong pace in Free Practice 1 and 2 which were held in the dry, but struggled for performance in the wet conditions of Qualifying, with Lewis Hamilton finishing 20th and last of the runners.
Leclerc admitted it was an area that team needed to specifically focus on in order to improve.
“We’ve got to really work on our wet pace because it’s been too many times the case of us being on the back foot and we are paying the price at the end of the year,” added Leclerc.
“When you look at all the wet Qualifying, all the wet races, we are just leaving too many points on the table.
“This is for sure a priority that I’ll set myself from now on. It was already one but probably now it’s even higher because we are struggling too much.”
