After his emotional victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari remain just 24 points behind Red Bull in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship standings.
However, Ferrari have fallen behind since then. Between Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr, the team managed just two podiums before the summer shutdown, and they slipped to third place at the break.
The Dutch Grand Prix was also a similar scenario. Both drivers struggled in practice and on Saturday, Leclerc managed to make it to Q3 while Sainz missed out on the third segment of qualifying. A strong result – let alone a podium – seemed a dream.
That changed on Sunday. Not only did Sainz bounce back to take fifth, but Leclerc also drove superbly to overtake Oscar Piastri to take third place and secure his seventh podium of the season.
After the race, Leclerc lauded The “nice surprise” that Zandvoort offered.
“Yesterday, we were struggling like crazy. Today, we were stronger. And these are things we have to work on. I think as much as we analyse every bad surprise during a season, we should also understand when we do something good,” Leclerc said. FIA press conference“For now, I don’t think we have an explanation for this as a team. So it’s a great result. I’m really happy to be standing on the podium. And I think it’s a really nice surprise. However, we need to understand more often to perform at our best.”
The Ferrari driver admitted he did not believe he would be able to hold off Piastri until the end.
“It wasn’t easy (to get a rhythm at the end), because my engineer was telling me Oscar’s lap time, which was quite a bit faster than mine when he was in free air, I think about a second. Then when he got closer, I started to push a bit harder and gained five tenths. And I think because of the dirty air, he lost maybe three or four tenths,” Leclerc explained. “He managed to stay behind and put me under a lot of pressure for two, three laps, but then couldn’t stay there because of overheating. It was a really good strategy. I didn’t expect to keep third until the end, but we worked really well as a team. I don’t think we could have done more today.”
Looking ahead, there are circuits on the calendar that could suit Ferrari. The Italian Grand Prix is next weekend, with the Scuderia hoping to bring the next series of upgrades to its home race at Monza. That race is followed by Azerbaijan – where Leclerc finished third in the grand prix last season – and Singapore, where Sainz was victorious a year ago.
Leclerc admitted he is optimistic about the upcoming event, but he also laid out a condition.
“If you had asked me this question yesterday, I would have told you it would be very difficult,” Leclerc said. When asked about the upcoming race“Today is a much better day. If we can understand what’s going on in our car, I’m very optimistic about the future. But as of now, we don’t fully understand.”
With this qualification, Leclerc admitted that the upcoming part of the schedule is “extremely important” for Ferrari.
“It’s very important. I think we did three or four races ago where we were experimenting a lot to understand what the fundamental issues of our car were for the development, medium term. We’re going to get an upgrade very soon. Now I can actually say that because Fred (Vasseur) said it, so it will happen at Monza,” said Leclerc. “And I hope that will help us and help us close the gap.”
“But until the upgrades, I always said that the priority for us was just to limit the losses. And today, we were targeting P6. Realistically, I think on paper, that’s what we were fighting for. However, after three, four laps, the pace was there,” said Leclerc. “And we called in P3, which is again a nice surprise. So good points. However, now I just hope that the upgrades will help us take a step forward.”