Leclerc rejects Hadjar’s claim Verstappen would have won Singapore by more in a Ferrari

Charles Leclerc has rejected Isack Hadjar’s suggestion that Max Verstappen would have won the Singapore Grand Prix by a larger margin in a Ferrari. Asked about the idea in Austin, Leclerc called it “nonsense”. Verstappen won by 7.3 seconds over Leclerc, who finished second.

Leclerc said Hadjar could not know what Ferrari’s car was like, just as he himself could not know what kind of car Hadjar drove. The field is tightly matched, he said, making predictions difficult; at such fine margins, optimising a team’s package matters more than expectations about the cars.

Leclerc said Mercedes might be an exception: it had not been as far ahead in recent races as expected. If it unlocks the performance he had in mind, he said, it would be further ahead than any other team. Otherwise, he expected the field to remain very tight.