Leclerc says P4 was the best he could do after Sepang recovery

Charles Leclerc recovered from last in the running order to fourth at Sepang in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, passing Isack Hadjar late. He said P4 was the best he could do.

Ferrari started both cars on soft tyres while the track was still wet; both fell back as intermediate runners passed. Leclerc said he collided with Nico Hülkenberg on lap one. The contact left him with a puncture and front-wing damage, and a slow stop to replace the wing and fit intermediates left him last in the running order.

Leclerc called the mixed-grid starting-tyre choice a close call. On race day, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said the team lacked the full picture of the track and got the opening call wrong, but made the right decisions afterwards. He said Ferrari’s recovery strategy then worked as intended. On 5 October, Vasseur said intermediates would have been the better starting choice, although Ferrari had made its original call with the information available at the time.

Hamilton also fell to P17 after starting on softs, with the track not drying as quickly as hoped. He chose to stay on them; as the track continued to dry, he got the compound working and climbed back through the field to third. Leclerc’s puncture and front-wing damage, by contrast, required a stop, so the two Ferrari recoveries took different routes.

Leclerc’s late pass on Hadjar came as the Red Bull driver struggled with understeer at the final Safety Car restart. A late battery issue also hampered Hadjar, and George Russell’s late retirement moved both Ferraris up one place.

After the race, Leclerc said everything that could go wrong in the first half did, while the second half went right for Ferrari. The car did not feel right to him; he also found it inconsistent and struggled to use its full potential. Ferrari, he said, still had plenty to learn before facing similar conditions again.