Charles Leclerc called his start to this season a “disaster” after retiring at the Australian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque’s race lasted just three corners at Albert Park as he was spun into the gravel by Lance Stroll on the opening lap.
Leclerc though wasn’t interested in blaming the Aston Martin driver for the collision.
“It was unfortunate to end the race this way today, but it was a racing incident and I don’t think that we could have done anything differently,” he said.
Race winner in 2022, Charles Leclerc’s race in Oz in 2023 only lasted a few corners ?#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/qeqRHN7CiF
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 3, 2023
“I saw that he was blocked by Fernando, suddenly he braked a little early, I saw space on the left and I went for it but unfortunately Lance found himself between me and Fernando.”
But two retirements in the first three races is definitely not what Leclerc and Ferrari expected after voicing confidence in their potential back at the launch.
“The result is that we don’t get a point,” Charles told Sky Sports. “It hurts.
“The start of the season is a disaster, it’s really not the start of the season I was hoping for.
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“A lot of frustration. It’s been three weekends and everything has gone wrong. Problems, penalty.
“DNF in Bahrain, penalty in Jeddah, and DNF here. Really not the start of the season I was hoping for.”
Ferrari’s main weakness so far has been race pace, but Leclerc was hopeful that Melbourne would offer some progress in closing the gap to Red Bull.
“We were waiting so much for this race because we could have done something very interesting,” he claimed.
“We made some set-up changes and I think in terms of race pace we could have seen a good improvement.”
Ironically, Leclerc’s start to 2023 echoes Max Verstappen’s start to last season, with the Dutchman also retiring in Bahrain and Australia.
But whereas Max was able to recover and eventually claim a comfortable second F1 title, Charles is unsure where Ferrari’s year goes from here.
“At the moment I don’t have long-term goals for this season,” he said.
“We have to think about finishing race by race without taking penalties and having problems. These are the priorities at this historic moment.”
