Charles Leclerc laments “missed opportunity” after double whammy at F1 Australian GP

Charles Leclerc was left to rue a “missed opportunity” at the Australian Grand Prix after an error of his own was compounded by a strategic mistake from Ferrari.

Leclerc was running a solid sixth on lap 44 of 57 when he spun in difficult conditions at the exit of Turn 11 and dropped outside the top 10.

Ferrari then elected to keep Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton out even as the track became too wet for slicks, hoping they would be able to brave out the conditions and gain track position.

But that strategy backfired massively as the rain intensified, with both Leclerc and Hamilton being forced to pit for intermediate tyres under the safety car a few laps later.

The Monegasque driver emerged from the chaos in 10th place, benefitting from retirements for other drivers, and eventually crossed the finish line in eighth after overtaking Hamilton and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

Hamilton wound up 10th in the other Ferrari, rounding off a disappointing weekend for the Scuderia in which its chief 2024 rival McLaren won the race from pole position with Lando Norris.

While Leclerc admitted that the SF-25 lacked the pace to run at the sharp end, he feels a better result was possible had both he and the team not made any mistakes.

"It was definitely a missed opportunity," Leclerc said. "Especially in those conditions when it's changing and that you don't have the pace, it's there that you got to score the points and we didn't today.

“We were not fast enough at the beginning of the race when the race was kind of boring, and then once it mattered to make the right choice, we didn’t.

“But the first one to blame is my mistake out of Turn 11, because I lost four positions or five positions and from that mistake. Then it puts us on the back foot.

"If you look three or four positions in front, then we are third or fourth, which I think was what could be done. But it's the way it is."

Leclerc felt the communication between him and the team was not “particularly bad” in Melbourne, despite Ferrari being the only frontrunning team to gamble on slick tyres during the sudden downpour.

“This is something that we always look at and that we know is something that we need to always keep our focus on,” he explained.

“Whether today was particularly bad, I don’t think so. But we’ll look into it.”

Ferrari was expected to be one of McLaren’s main challengers at the season-opening Australian GP based on the form it had shown in Bahrain testing.

However, Leclerc and Hamilton qualified seventh and eighth respectively on Saturday, while they only managed to score five points between them in the race.

It prompted the 27-year-old to admit that Ferrari has work to do to close the gap to McLaren and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

"We were definitely very off in terms of pace compared to the McLarens and Max, so we'll look into it, but yes, for sure we were struggling today,” he said.

“Then McLaren and Red Bull were so much faster, so there's a lot of work to be done."