Despite scoring points in four of the last five races, Sauber’s Charles Leclerc wasn’t entirely happy with his own performance in the French Grand Prix.
The reigning Formula 2 champion starred in qualifying and was running as high as sixth in the early stages of Sunday’s race. Leclerc was in eighth ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg but made a mistake and ran wide at Turn 2 on lap 24, losing a position in the process to the Renault driver.
Reflecting on his race, he told Sky Sports: “I’m happy. But I’m always hard on myself. And I’m a little disappointed with myself today. At one point I was catching Kevin, we went into the DRS zone of Kevin. I really wanted to do the best first sector I could to be as close as possible to try and overtake him, but I lost the car at Turn 2.
“Then we lost the position to Nico that came back because of this small mistake. It’s like this. We’ve had a very good run at the last couple of races. Not many mistakes from both sides. Sometimes it happens. I will try to learn from it and come back stronger.”
Sauber has already scored more points than it did in the last two seasons combined and Leclerc believes the team is reaping the rewards of its partnership with Alfa Romeo.
“We are rebuilding the team,” Leclerc added. “They are coming back or three from two – very, very hard years for them. For now, we are seeing the progress. This is nice to see. I think there is still quite a lot to do. But today we managed to hit our balance in the perfect way. That has helped us to have such a performance.”