Leclerc draws painful conclusion after facing Verstappen and McLaren

While the Australian Grand Prix was a successful one for Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, the Ferrari drivers did not fare as well. Lewis Hamilton was able to lead the race for a second but due to a bad call, he dropped quickly to 10th place. Teammate Charles Leclerc did not get beyond eighth place. Afterwards, Leclerc explained that he could not keep up with the speed of McLaren and Red Bull.

During the race, Leclerc had several issues. One of those was water leakage in the car. He reported that his seat was wet and filled with water. His race engineer said, "It must be the water." During the race, Ferrari was not able to keep up with the top teams.

"About today, I don't think we've learned more than what we knew yesterday. I mean, today it's such particular conditions that it's very difficult to take anything out of. We were definitely very off in terms of pace compared to the McLaren and Max. So we'll look into it. But yes, for sure we were struggling today." Leclerc said after the Australian Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver added, "We were pretty similar to the Mercedes in front, but that was it. Then McLaren and Red Bull were so much faster. So there's a lot of work to be done. Why, especially in those conditions, I don't know yet. But it's been a weakness that we've had since quite a few years. I think we've been quite up and down whenever it was raining, damp".

This article was written in collaboration with Esteban den Toom.

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