Charles Leclerc insists Ferrari is “united” but says the “accumulation” of recent issues is “hard to take”.
At last Sunday’s British Grand Prix, the Monegasque was hung out to dry by his team, who opted to only pit teammate Carlos Sainz for fresh tyres during a Safety Car period.
As a result of that decision, Leclerc was a sitting duck for Sainz, who won the race, Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton, who all overtook him as Charles finished fourth.
A three-way battle for the podium positions ?
Lewis, Checo and Charles really left it all out on the track! ?#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/t6NbI8x6xq
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 4, 2022
Afterwards, the 24-year-old was seen in an animated conversation with Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto.
“He was angry at me because I was too down, and so he was trying to cheer me up,” Leclerc told Formula1.com on Thursday.
“Everybody was wondering why he was putting the finger like this but I think he was just frustrated to see me so down after such a great race.
“On the other hand, it’s obviously understandable, he understood my disappointment – leading the race and finishing fourth,” he noted.
“We just have to make sure that this type of thing doesn’t happen too much in a season.
“For me, it’s more the accumulation in the last five races that is hard to take, because the reliability issues and the different issues that we’ve had in the last races means that I haven’t even been on the podium in the last five races, so it’s not easy.”
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The P4 result at Silverstone was made more frustrating by Max Verstappen’s tough race, as the championship leader limped to P7 with debris lodged in his floor.
But Leclerc couldn’t fully capitalise on a chance to close the gap by 19 points instead, he only gained six on the Red Bull driver.
Indeed, Leclerc hasn’t won since his dominant victory in Melbourne back in April and is currently 43 points behind Verstappen in the championship.
Even so: “I am as motivated as I was before,” he said. “I’m coming into this weekend with full confidence that we can have a great weekend, and looking long-term, I still believe as much as I did [before that we can win] the championships.
“I feel the support of the team. It hasn’t gone our way in the last few races but again I think internally we are working as hard as ever.
“To give the details outside is difficult and I don’t want to go into that but we are definitely going into absolutely everything to make our situation better.”
During this week, there have been rumours of a split in the Ferrari camp, with Leclerc’s engineers reportedly not taking part in Sainz’s win celebrations due to anger at the team’s strategic decisions that have worked against their driver.
“It is a shame to see all of this type of thing,” Charles responded.
“It is definitely not what is happening inside the team. We are a very united team, we’ve always been and it’s not these difficult races that will make it change.
“Were we disappointed after last weekend? I think we were because we were one-two and we finished one-four so part of the team was disappointed. But this was definitely not the reason whatsoever for not everybody being in the picture.
Instead, Leclerc blamed the timing of the photo, saying those who did take part missed the plane back to Italy.
“We wanted to do the first picture…but Carlos was not there,” he said. “So we had to delay everything. But there are no hard feelings whatsoever.
“Everyone was very happy for Carlos, and this is the feeling that there is inside the team.”
