Leclerc smells opportunities: 'We are all very close together'

Ferrari came to the track in Imola with no less than seven different upgrades. The aim was to win in home country, Italy. During free practice, Ferrari seemed to have come out strong. Yet Charles Leclerc had to make do with a fourth place in qualifying and Carlos Sainz with a fifth place, which eventually became a fourth starting spot due to a penalty from Oscar Piastri.

Leclerc sees where Ferrari missed out

Leclerc eventually managed third place at the Grand Prix. This was his first time on the podium in Imola. "It's always very special to be on the podium here in Imola. However, obviously, I'm never satisfied with P3. You always want to be on the top step of the podium, but considering everything, I think we have lost mostly what could have been yesterday in qualifying, and we will analyse. But today in the race, as Lando said, I think we were all very close, and it was all about who was pushing when in the race. Then the podium was very special as it always is when we are in Italy."

The Ferrari driver also spent his first Grand Prix working with his new race engineer, Bryan Bozzi. Leclerc is very appreciative of this collaboration. "He has done very well. It's always very tricky whenever you change, especially in the middle of the season like it was the case here, so there were a lot of new things that he had to get up to speed with. I also had Johannes, he was my performance engineer on track, so I had two people in my team who were new in their role, and that was quite difficult at the beginning. But actually, they've done an incredible job and it went really well. Now we'll work on that and try to get better, but it's a really good start."