Leclerc reveals why his pace fell off the cliff in Las Vegas

By Balazs Szabo on 24 Nov 2024, 23:00

Explaining his lack of pace in the early stages of the race, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc reckoned that the sudden drop of grip on the mediums has completely destroyed his chances at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Ferrari were favourites heading into the Las Vegas weekend, but they were caught by surprise on Thursday when Mercedes started to display a shocking performance.

The Scuderia managed to secure encouraging starting positions for the race, with Carlos Sainz taking second and Charles Leclerc fourth for the 50-lap Nevadan round. The Monégasque then had a brilliant start, jumping to second at the first corner while the Spaniard dropped to third.

Although the two Ferrari drivers appeared to be the quickest in the opening stages of the race, their tyre completely fell off the cliff on Lap 8 which forced them to pit for a new set of hards. However, their pace on the hards was impressive again and managed to salvage their day by climbing through the field to secure a third and fourth place for the Scuderia.

Leclerc secured pole position for the Las Vegas race last season, and finished in P2 which made him hopeful of another impressive showing this year. However, he was unable to challenge for the victory, and he has revealed that graining on the medium tyres caused completely derailed his race on Saturday.

“I finished the race where I started it today, so it wasn’t that exciting, but if you look at the details it was quite an eventful one. Unfortunately, we degraded the fronts on the first stint on Mediums, then we were able to come back on the Hards which were working better.

“Big congratulations to Max (Verstappen). He deserves this championship title, he has had an amazing season and always maximised his results which has paid off for him.

“It gives us motivation to be even stronger next year and hopefully we can put him under some more pressure then. We will push hard in the last two races to try to finish the season ahead of McLaren,” concluded Leclerc.