Ferrari fears their strong pace at the Monaco Grand Prix represented their only chance to win a Formula 1 race in 2021.
The Scuderia upset the Mercedes/Red Bull dominance at the front so far this season, with Charles Leclerc taking pole in qualifying only to be unable to take the start due to a driveshaft problem caused by his crash in Q3.
Reflecting on the disappointment of continuing his miserable record of failing to finish a race in Monaco, Leclerc tried to focus on the positives, though noted the significance of the opportunity that he missed.
“Of course it is difficult because it’s at home,” he said. “It’s not every day that we have the chance to be in such a good place.
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“But at the end, it’s like this, it’s part of motorsports and these things can happen. As Mattia [Binotto, Ferrari team boss] said, that’s what I will try to remember from this weekend, all the positive signs we’ve had.
“We are coming back from quite far, if we see last year, so we’ve done a good job by improving races after races.
“Here it might be a one-off to be fighting for the win, but that doesn’t mean that there has been no progress.
“We are on the good road, we are working well. Surely the luck was not on my side this weekend and it’s life.
“I’ll just get over it, think about Baku, I’m very, very motivated to be back in the car and to hopefully have a very good result.”
Whether Monaco will be Ferrari’s only chance to win this season is up for debate, with circuits like Hungary and Singapore likely to play to their strengths.
But Binotto is more focused on moving forward one race at a time.
“I think yes there will be circuits with low-speed corners that we may be competitive but it is not a given, and I think on our side instead of thinking which circuits we will be competitive, we are already focused on Baku, the next one, then focused on the following,” he explained.
“There is still room for exploiting better the car, we have shown if we prepare better for the race weekend we can exploit the weekend.
“There will be some development coming, not much, but important to show they are working properly. It is step by step, continuous working, and developing in the right direction, and as a team improving.
“Even tough weekends like this one where we have a failure there is lessons learned and that is the most important.”
