"No blame to put on anyone but me": Leclerc after missing out on the podium in Montreal
- Meghana Sree
- 4 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Charles Leclerc has been cutting a desolate figure throughout the Canadian round, struggling for pace compared to teammate Lewis Hamilton who went on to secure second in the Grand Prix after starting fifth.
Though Leclerc managed to secure fourth from eighth on the grid, if not for the McLarens' disastrous race day, even that would've been a tall ask for the Ferrari driver who remarked earlier this weekend that this has been "one, if not the worst weekend of my career".
Leclerc has been on the backfoot all throughout this round, and during the race, found the most action in his battle with Isack Hadjar for fourth place. Before making the move for fourth, Leclerc almost slammed into the Frenchman who went defensive and later collected a 10-second time penalty for change of direction more than once.
Leclerc then wasn't able to progress any further up the ranks, and was forced to sit back and watch as his teammate chased Max Verstappen for second to secure his best finish with Ferrari.
Speaking post-race having settled for fourth, Leclerc stated: "There is no blame to put on anyone but me — it has been a nightmare of a weekend. Lewis [Hamilton] did an incredible job."
Leclerc's depressing weekend was made even more tense with the fraught communication with his race engineer, complaining that he was being fed too much information during tense laps.
"Let's stop speaking until the last lap, you tell me the last lap and anything completely critical," he asserted over the radio.
To make matters worse, Leclerc's race almost came to an end after one of the many Virtual Safety Cars (VSC) during the race, the Monégasque driver going wide and nearly spinning out at Turn 14 but managing to save it in the nick of time.
Leclerc's comments from after qualifying ring true even now post-race, as he expressed then: "Since FP1, I haven't had one lap where I could feel the car.
"I just felt like I was going to put it into the wall in every single corner I do just because the tyres were completely out of the window today. The brakes yesterday that were not in the window as well. There was never, at any time, something that was just clicking and everything was right."
After a hectic and disappointing Canadian weekend, Leclerc will be excited to prepare for his home round in Monaco from 5th to 7th June, where he sealed a long-awaited home victory in 2024. The Ferrari driver will be eager to bring his mojo back for the Monaco Grand Prix, where he'll be chasing not just a podium this time, but an optimistic shot at the win should Mercedes face more reliability issues as with George Russell's retirement today, or an intra-team clash.
For now though, Leclerc hangs on to third in the Drivers' standings, benefitting from Lando Norris' equally, if not more, disastrous race that saw him retire with a faulty gearbox.
