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Charles Leclerc lost another win due to Ferrari's strategic debacle at the 2022 F1 Hungarian GP. Ever since his win in the F1 Australian GP this season, it's been a rollercoaster for Charles Leclerc, as he has nailed his qualifying performances but when it comes to races, either it's poor strategy or luck or reliability that always seems to hinder him.
The 2022 F1 Hungarian GP was no different for the Ferrari driver. Speaking to the media after the race, Charles Leclerc said:
“A race like this is frustrating and we need to get better as a whole. It feels like there is always something going wrong – reliability, mistakes, whatever. We need to be better at putting a weekend together. Now, we will try to use the few days we have to reset, but also try to analyse and understand where we need to be better and what we can do to be better because it is extremely important.”
When questioned about what changes he would have opted for in terms of strategy, Leclerc said that the team should not have reacted to Max Verstappen's early pit stop and rather extended the second stint, which would have made for a much better strategy for the driver. The Monegasque said:
“I think my second stint should have been longer. The first stint was the right moment to stop and we did the right choice there, but on the second stint there, I don’t know exactly why we cut it short and went on the hard. I’m pretty sure that this was a call to put us under pressure, but I don’t think we should have reacted to that because then it was a snowball effect for us and we lost a lot more than we should have.”
Charles Leclerc looking forward to the fightback in the second half of the season
After the race, Charles Leclerc admitted that this was another bad day in the book for the team. Having said that, the Ferrari driver was optimistic about going into the summer break so the team could analyze where things went wrong and try to mount a better fight in the second half of the season. He said:
“It’s a shame we didn’t bring home a better result, because the car felt good and we had a strong pace on Medium tyres today. Unfortunately, the Hards just did not work in these conditions. We now need to see what we could have done better, recharge our batteries over the break and be ready to fight in the second part of the season.’’
Charles Leclerc is currently looking at an 80-point deficit to Max Verstappen, and it will take nothing but perfection from Ferrari to close the gap to the top.
