Leclerc was “on the back foot” through Mexico City GP weekend

Leclerc admits that Sainz did the better job in Mexico

Charles Leclerc says he was “on the back foot” throughout the Mexico City GP event, while acknowledging that team mate Carlos Sainz had “a perfect weekend.”

Pole man Sainz scored a superb victory after overcoming early leader Max Verstappen, while after running second for much of the race Leclerc lost second place to Lando Norris in the closing stages when he ran off the road exiting the final corner.

Leclerc, who made a late pit stop for new tyres in order to bag fastest lap, said he never recovered from having to hand his car to Oliver Bearman for FP1.

“All-in-all, it’s been a really positive weekend for Ferrari, a little bit less for me personally,” said Leclerc.

“I haven’t been on my top game this weekend, but having said that, I think Carlos has been doing just the perfect weekend from the first lap in FP1, to the last one of the race.

“On my side, I was a little bit on the back foot, missing FP1, and I never really recovered. During the race, I felt like I was relatively quick on the first stint. Unfortunately, I was requested to do quite a lot of management for temperatures, but at the end it was the way it is.

“I think I’m very happy for the team, very happy for Carlos. He deserves it more than anybody this weekend, because he’s been driving better than anyone. And yeah, a good result for the team.”

Asked what issues he had with the car Leclerc said: “Nothing really, sometimes you get into the car and the feeling is perfect, and sometimes you just have to work a lot harder for it, and that’s what happened this weekend.

“And obviously there was quite a limited amount of running for me, because the whole FP2 was on prototypes and Pirelli testing, and then FP3 was all about trying to get back into the rhythm, but I never really managed to do so. So yeah, I was just not fast enough.”

Leclerc downplayed the significance of his off-track excursion, insisting that he would have lost second place to Norris anyway.

“By then I had no chance to stay in front of Lando,” he said. “Lando was flying, and I think as a team, we’ve been pretty lucky that whatever happened with Max and Lando at the beginning of the race, that slowed him down massively, and his second stint was very, very impressive.

“So that was a good thing for us, and that probably helped us. On my side, there was no way that I could stay in front. I knew that it would be very difficult.

“I knew that I had to have an incredible exit out of the last corner, so I tried to put everything to have a really good exit, went over the limit, lost the car and lost the position. But I felt it was a question of laps or corners before I lost that position.”