Leclerc “extremely happy” with improved Ferrari F1 race pace at Portimao

Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari F1 has turned a corner with regards to its race pace after finishing fourth at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Unlike at the Eifel Grand Prix last time out, Leclerc was able to maintain his impressive qualifying showing to finish fourth behind the two Mercedes drivers and Max Verstappen.

In the last few rounds, Ferrari has introduced small updates to its car in a bid to turn its season around and Leclerc feels its performance at Portimao shows it’s going in the right direction.

“I’m extremely happy,” Leclerc said. “Not because we didn’t get lapped but mostly because our race pace, in general, has been very positive today. We’ve been struggling quite a lot at the start, which cost us quite a lot of overall time for the race, but in the end, we caught back quite a lot and so overall I’m quite happy with our performance today.”

The opening lap of the race at Portimao proved to be chaotic due to how difficult it was for drivers to get their tyres up to temperature.

Having started on the harder medium compound, Leclerc admits he had to be patient before unleashing the true pace of his Ferrari as the race progressed.

“It was a very difficult one, because the first half of the race, I had to be very, very patient,” Leclerc added. “I was getting overtaken a bit everywhere, and then lap after lap I could feel it was coming and then it paid off at the end. But I felt quite good in the car. It was tricky, I had a lot of moments where I thought I would crash, but in the end I kept it on track, and fourth place is a great place to [be].”