Leclerc: I can improve to help Ferrari’s race strategy

Charles Leclerc admits he can learn from the Mexican Grand Prix by being more “decisive” in helping his Ferrari Formula 1 team’s strategy calls.

Ferrari split its strategy as polesitter Leclerc stopped early in the race to cover off the threat of Red Bull’s Alexander Albon and retain track position, while teammate Sebastian Vettel carried out a successful one-stopper to finish second.

Leclerc, who ultimately finished fourth and just over three seconds behind Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes, believes he can make improvements in better helping Ferrari’s decision-making process.

“I still need to do some work in the races especially, because it’s a tendency in the last few weekends and today,” he said.

“OK the strategy has not been good but I should have probably have come over the radio and asked for something and been more decisive in the decision to try and help the team from my side, which Seb did.

“So I need to learn from that but it will come in time.”

Asked if the two-stop strategy was key to where he finished behind the one-stopping top three, Leclerc replied: “This is not the only answer.

“I think that the second stint was not particularly great, I didn’t feel good on these Medium compounds.

“I don’t know why but the first Medium felt a lot better, so we need to analyse this and understand this.

“Once we did the first stop early to cover the position from Albon then we knew it was going to be a two-stop race and all the others went for a one-stop so it was going to be very difficult.

“I believe that we wanted to cover from Albon especially,” he added.

“Mostly to cover overheating because that is a big factor here, so we wanted to have track position and not be behind.

“I believe at that point of the race we believed it would be a two-stop, but it didn’t happen at the end.”