Charles Leclerc has explained the “very scary moment” which cost him the chance of fighting leader George Russell at the end of the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.
The Ferrari driver finished second in the Shanghai sprint behind the championship leader, having started fourth but overtaken Lando Norris and team-mate Lewis Hamilton during it.
Leclerc then had Russell in his sights for the lap 17 restart after a safety car caused by Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg, but suffered a snap of oversteer in the final sector – giving the Mercedes man a one-second advantage come the start of green flag running.
When asked by Motorsport.com about the incident, Leclerc said: “That was a very scary moment, I thought that was it.
“I saw George having a snap and I was like ‘okay, that’s an opportunity for me to be super close for the restart and hopefully take the lead’.
“So I was quite confident I would have rear grip, however when I went on throttle I completely lost the car 10 times more than the snap George had in front and I nearly lost it.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Lintao Zhang / LAT Images via Getty Images
“Yeah, it’s one of those snaps that you don’t want any more degree of snap because otherwise you cannot catch it.
“I was full lock and luckily I caught it back and then same thing happened in the last corner where George lost a bit of grip. I was like ‘okay, another opportunity to try and get closer’ and I just had the same moment.
“So there was just very poor grip in these first two corners with the tyres after the safety car.”
The win from pole continued a perfect start to the season for Russell, who also won last weekend’s Melbourne season opener, but Mercedes is certainly facing pressure from Ferrari.
Although the Briton has dominated both qualifying sessions this year in a Silver Arrows 1-2 with Kimi Antonelli – who finished the sprint in fifth after a poor start plus a 10-second penalty for colliding into Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar – Ferrari has closed the gap in the races.
Melbourne, for example, saw an early fight between Russell and Leclerc, who eventually finished third simply because of Ferrari failing to pit under the virtual safety car.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
So when asked if the Scuderia could be a threat in Sunday’s Chinese GP, Russell said: “Yeah, absolutely. We’re a little bit surprised by our quali strength and potentially their lack of pace compared to what we expect, but the race pace, it looks really close between us.
“We saw this last week and I said it in Melbourne, I think if they were on the same strategy as me I’m not convinced we’d have won the race.
“Again today, it was a real tussle between us and I was pushing at the end of those last three laps and Charles finished the race 0.7 behind me with one more lap. It would have been a fight so yeah, we just need to keep pushing and it’s not a walk in the park for sure.”
Qualifying for Sunday’s race will occur later on Saturday, with Russell heading into it occupying an 11-point championship advantage over Antonelli and Leclerc, who are both tied in second.
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