While he managed to come home in P2, with Perez and Sainz going wheel-to-wheel at the start of the penultimate lap and dramatically crashing out, Leclerc was left to wonder what might have been on another day.
Asked to reflect on the race, and when he realised he would not get the win, Leclerc replied: “I think as soon as we put the hard tyres on. The mediums were very competitive and the car felt good.
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“Unfortunately, we didn’t do any high fuel running on my side in FP1/FP2 and we went for a set-up direction that maybe in the race was a bit more difficult to manage. Especially on the hard tyres, I was really struggling to just keep those rear tyres.
“Towards the end I really thought that… in one corner or two I thought that I would put it in the wall. It was very close, but [we ended up] second today.”
