The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Ferrari test track and second home. However, the last Ferrari podium before the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix 2024 was several years ago. 18 to be exact. Charles Leclerc put an end to this dry spell today. The Monegasque secured the final podium place. Eight seconds were missing from the top. Leclerc is not satisfied with that. Lost chance of victory in qualifying?
Leclerc: It’s special to be on the podium in Imola
There is probably no other race track where the Ferrari myth is lived out as much as it is in Imola. Only Monza is comparable. The last driver before Charles Leclerc to be on the podium in Formula 1 was Michael Schumacher in 2006. The record world champion even won the race back then.
“It’s always something special to be on the podium here, but I’m never satisfied with third place,” is Charles Leclerc’s conclusion. A victory a la Schumacher would have pleased the Monegasque even better. “When I think about everything, we probably lost what could have been in qualifying. We somehow had a different performance strategy and lost a lot of time on the straight towards turn two. We will analyze that.”
Leclerc qualified behind Lando Norris on Saturday and won the place against Oscar Piastri thanks to his penalty. “I think we were all very close to each other in the race today. It was more about who pushed when. The position on the track is everything when there is only a tenth between the cars,” explains Leclerc. In the first stint, Leclerc initially seemed to be able to keep up well, but then fell behind.
It wasn’t until the end of the race that he started an offensive again and temporarily moved back up to two seconds, but then fell off again. Norris went after Verstappen at the front, Leclerc couldn’t keep up the pace and finished 7.9 seconds behind the winner.
“At the beginning of the stint with the hard tires I was able to get closer again with the pace advantage. Then I fell out of the DRS window and Lando [Norris, Anm. d. Red.] started pushing. These two things caused me to fall behind a bit,” explains Leclerc.
Leclerc with an update on the F1 car and race engineer
With the start of the European season, most teams have brought further updates to their cars. The same applies to Ferrari. The Reds have brought an extensive car to the SF-24, which is particularly reminiscent of the RB20 in terms of the side pods.
“I think this route is not the best to judge the updates,” says Leclerc. “Especially because driving on the curbs is such a big issue here. If you have a car that can handle it well, it obscures the real ranking. But it did exactly what we were supposed to. That’s positive,” said Leclerc.
The update to the car was not the only one for Charles Leclerc in Imola. In Imola, Leclerc worked with a new racing engineer at Ferrari for the first time. Bryan Bozzi replaced Xavier Marcos. “He did well. It’s always difficult when you change the race engineer in the middle of the season. There were a lot of new things he had to learn,” said Leclerc. At Leclerc’s home race in Monaco, these processes are likely to be more routine.