Charles Leclerc finished the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in second place. The Ferrari man started from pole position and was in the fight for the lead until very close to the end, before not having the arguments to beat Max Verstappen (Red Bull). He then fought for the other podium places until the last lap, when he came out on top against Sergio Pérez (Red Bull).
The #16 stated at the press conference that, without the second safety car, he could have been the winner: ‘It’s a mix of emotions. On one hand, I am extremely happy with today’s performance. I think we left nothing on the table and until the last lap, until the last corner of the last lap, I gave it my all and managed to get that second place. On the other hand, it is obvious that I am disappointed because I truly believe that without the safety car, the victory was ours, because we had a very good first stint with the medium tires and we had hard tires five laps younger than Max’s. I had good four or five laps to get them up to temperature and we did a very good job at that. So, I was really confident that the victory was ours. Then, unfortunately, there was the safety car’.
According to Leclerc, the problem afterwards was not the age of his tires, but rather the difficulty in heating them up after the safety car: ‘Max and Checo pitted and I stayed on track with my used hard tires from five laps, which is not that much, five laps. But the problem is that when you cool them down during the safety car, starting with a used tire is incredibly difficult with those temperatures. And that’s where we lost the race. But, on the other hand, I think the final part of the race was extremely fun. And that gave me a lot of adrenaline inside the car, and I really enjoyed it’.
