Leclerc on finishing ninth: ‘We feel sensitive to the change of conditions'

"Not having the pace puts us in a situation that is very tricky to manage, whatever situation there is," Leclerc told GPblog among others following the race. "It looks like bad luck. Let's say the safety car, the timing of the safety car was definitely not the best for us and was beneficial for many other drivers, but at the end it's like we just didn't have pace. It's not like we degraded the tyres more than others, it's just that Mercedes and McLaren were stronger than us," he continued.

Leclerc knew it was not going to be easy for Ferrari this weekend, but hoped they could achieve more. "This is very difficult to understand, but we know that this track was going to be one of our worst tracks just because of the high-speed corners. This is one of the weaknesses of the car. It was kind of a positive surprise to be so close yesterday, not timing-wise, because I didn't do a great lap in P3, but we were very close to Red Bull, I think, on the time-lapse."

Problem with the wind

The Monegasque driver also commented what was the main issue for Ferrari. "There's still a long way to go, because at the moment we still feel very sensitive to the change of conditions. When I say change of conditions, I mean mostly the wind. When we have a change of wind, our car becomes extremely difficult. And on that, we have made steps forward, but there's still quite a big step to go."

"It was a surprise [to see the McLarens so high]. It's very difficult to expect this year's race results, because it's so inconsistent between teams, but they were very strong this weekend," Leclerc added.