Charles Leclerc Summarises Ferrari’s Radical Turnaround in One Word

The Scuderia Ferrari team had a nightmarish race at the US Grand Prix 2019 on Sunday. Sebastian Vettel qualified on the front row, with Charles Leclerc lining up 4th fastest. Sadly for the Maranello outfit, their race would unravel from there, as neither driver had any answer to Mercedes’s pace.

So, when Charles Leclerc was questioned about how Ferrari’s race went, his response was appropriate, “Sh*t”. In fact, he was right, because he started 4th and after 56 laps, he remained 4th. Meanwhile, teammate Vettel did not survive the race as a wrecked suspension did him in.

It was also note-worthy that Red Bull driver Max Verstappen took some sneaky jabs at Ferrari. In the wake of an investigation and a technical directive, the Dutchman snarked that Ferrari deserved 4th when they were ‘not cheating’.

Naturally, Ferrari and Charles Leclerc were highly offended and they hit back immediately. Team boss Mattia Binotto said, “I read and I heard a lot of comments this weekend about a technical directive and the impact on our cars.”

“I heard comments at the end of the race which I feel very disappointing. As a matter of fact I believe yesterday we have been very close to the pole position as it has been in the last races, I think that Seb could have scored the pole yesterday, maybe a bit too much cautions in one corner.”

Meanwhile, Leclerc fired, “He has no clue. He’s not in the team. So we know exactly what we are doing and I don’t know why he’s speaking, he doesn’t know anything about us.”

However, Sebastian Vettel took the moral high ground and chose not to comment on the vicious jabs. Binotto further explained, “it’s true that we were not gaining on the straight as much as in the past races, but true as well that I think we matched our competitors in cornering – at least in qualifying.”

“The trade-off between grip-limited and power-limited has been moved this weekend. We were competitive in qualifying and now there is something in the race we need to understand and then see what’s best for the next races in terms of the trade-off.”