06/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Monza victor Charles Leclerc admits that he feared McLaren's decision to undercut him with Lando Norris had cost him any hope of winning.
Taking advantage of the Briton's battle with his teammate at the second chicane, Leclerc slipped past Norris to claim second. On lap 14, moments after being passed by Carlos Sainz, the Briton pitted, re-emerging in 8th.
Ferrari immediately responded but Leclerc rejoined the race behind the McLaren. "Why did we pit if we are undercut," the Monegasque demanded of his team.
The pair gradually worked their way back up towards the front until Norris made his second stop on lap 32, Leclerc taking the lead when Oscar Piastri stopped 6 laps later.
"Once we got undercut, I thought, okay, maybe we are losing the win there," Leclerc admitted at race end, "but then once both pitted, I actually picked up quite a lot of front grip having the free air in front.
"As they said, being the last car, I didn't have much to lose by trying the one-stop, but we did a really, really good job with that front left, which has been very, very tricky for everybody.
"We had a lot of front braking but managed to take that front grip again and that helped us to win today."
Ferrari revealed that the plan had always been to go for a one-stop strategy, but on seeing the deg that the Red Bulls were suffering on the hards caused them to have second thoughts.
"Before the race, if you will have asked me, the one-stop was definitely the thing I wanted to do," said the race winner. "After ten laps, I think we saw that Red Bull started to struggle with the front left on the hard and then we started to doubt the one-stop. We thought that it would be a lot more difficult because we thought that the hard would be a more difficult tyre to bring to the end.
"However, as soon as I put it on, I still thought that this was a possibility. Especially, I think, when Oscar pitted two or three laps after that, I felt like I had more grip not having a car in front, especially on the front tyres. That's where I really thought that the one-stop, we could make it work."
Asked how the team would have reacted had Piastri opted for just one stop, Leclerc admitted: "To be honest, I think we'd have waited maybe one or two laps more just to see.
"I felt like maybe in the last two, three laps before Oscar pitted, we were coming back a tiny bit," he continued, "but I've got to check that again. It was difficult for me to get closer than where I was, mostly because of the front left and the understeer that being behind Oscar, I had quite a bit too much understeer.
"So maybe we'll have gone on the second, for the first, second stop and be a bit more aggressive to try and come back towards the end. But yeah, I don't know."
All that is irrelevant however, for Piastri did pit, and Leclerc scored a famous, popular victory, months after finally winning his home race at Monaco.
"It's an incredible feeling," he said. "Actually, I thought that the first time would just feel like this," he added, referring to his win here in 2019, "and then the second time, if there was a second time, wouldn't feel as special.
"But, my God, the emotions in the last few laps, exactly the same, like in 2019, just watching the grandstands inside of the track. which is tricky but yeah, incredible! I mean Monaco and Monza are the two races that I want to win every year.
"Obviously I want to win as many races as possible and the world championship as soon as possible but these are the two most important races of the season and I managed to win them this year. So, it's so, so special.
"Just like in 2019, the last three, four, five laps it was quite difficult to keep the eyes on the track and I was obviously looking a little bit in the grandstand, I could see everybody was standing up and that was really nice to see. In 2019 I remember there was my mum also in the grandstand because I didn't manage to have a paddock pass for her.
"This year, she actually had a paddock pass, so it's good. She could watch and experience both things, once in the grandstand and once in the paddock. But yeah, it's a very special feeling. I could also see some red smoke at one point. So I knew everybody was super excited, but I also knew that I had to finish the job and that I had to stay on it because Oscar had a really good pace.
"But yeah, in the last five, six laps, I felt like we had it. The tyres felt good and I could see that Oscar was not that fast to catch me before the end of the race if I was not doing any mistakes."