Leclerc reveals positive chat with Hamilton amid Friday woes for Ferrari
Photo: Race Pictures
Kada Sárközi joined GPblog as an editor ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season. He graduated with a BA in Sports Journalism in the UK and has covered Grands Prix and other F1 events live.
Charles Leclerc says the situation has been settled after discussing what happened in Mexico City with Lewis Hamilton and team principal Frederic Vasseur.
Speaking at the team principals' press conference on Friday, Vasseur explained that he sat down with his two drivers after Mexico City. "We did it yesterday evening because I had to fly back to Europe between the two races, but it went well."
He explained that guidelines will remain the same, but added: "They need to respect the brand, the team, the people working at home, the people working on track. I think we are putting a lot of effort into this, and the message was clear."
Speaking after FP2, Leclerc was also asked about how their chat went. The Monegasque driver said: "Yeah, I think it was really good to just discuss it altogether. Obviously, for me, it's been a bit of a crazy week, positively, because I became a father for the first time, so we didn't necessarily have time to discuss.
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"And I think discussing whatever frustration is left is always good, and, that was needed. Now I feel it's fully settled, and I don't think we should be speaking about it too much going forward," he concluded about this matter.
Ferrari has difficult Friday at Interlagos
After handing the SF-26 over to rookie Dino Beganovic in FP1, Leclerc made his first appearance of the weekend in FP2. It was not a straightforward session for the Monegasque driver.
"It's been a very difficult Friday. The feeling was just very poor inside the car, so we've got a lot of work to do and probably more than other weekends. We need to changed quite a lot of the car from today to tomorrow. It just felt quite strange in a way. So, yeah, lots of changes to be made."
He continued: "We were losing for sure on the straights, but I think the car, in terms of the corners, just felt probably one of the worst Friday feeling of the season. So I think there's a lot to be found in the corners, more than in the straights where we know we have a deficit. But, normally, we are very fast in corners, and today that was not the case."
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Leclerc then concluded: "I don't have the answer yet. I've got quite a lot of ideas on what to change, and I think there will be significant changes going into tomorrow. Whether that will be enough, the issues we had today was quite big, but there's no reason why we would struggle so much more on a track like this, so we need to find a solution."
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