Ferrari won’t repeat slump which followed Monaco win

Charles Leclerc is confident his second victory of the season won’t be followed by another immediate downturn in performance by Ferrari, as his Monaco win was.

After Leclerc’s victory in the Monaco Grand Prix in May, he only finished in the points once over the next four races. Yesterday he said the team must dispassionately scrutinise the role played by their latest updates in their Monza triumph.

“We shouldn’t – and I’ve said that after Monaco, and I think we did that – we shouldn’t rely on the race we have just done,” said Leclerc. “As a team, it’s really important for us that once we come back at the factory tomorrow, we reset from everything that has happened during the weekend. We learn from it and we try to analyse everything, but we should leave emotions aside and reset as a team and go again in Baku, not having crazy high expectations because that’s not where the team is at the moment.

“I repeat myself, but Monza is a very specific track. We have been very strong this weekend, but Baku will be maybe very different and Singapore again very different. So we’ve got to reset.”

Ferrari were plagued by problems with their car bouncing at high speed in the races which followed Leclerc’s Monaco win. His victory at Monza was his third consecutive podium finish, indicating the team has turned a corner.

Leclerc believes they are in better shape now but said they mustn’t get carried away after their third win of the year.

“We did a reset from Monaco to Montreal, but as we’ve seen from Monaco to Montreal, it was a really big change from one weekend to another,” he said. “And then we went through three or four of the worst races of the season, just because we were trying to understand what was going on in our car.

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“So hopefully we don’t go through three or four very difficult races from now on. I don’t think it will be the case. But again, it’s very important that not only the team, but I think also the expectations from outside don’t become crazy high from one race to another because this is not realistic.

“Have we done a step forward? Yes. Is it enough to go and win races until the end of the season? I don’t think so yet, but we did a good step in the right direction.”

Leclerc’s two wins this year have come at F1’s fastest and slowest tracks. He isn’t convinced yet Ferrari are quick enough to consistently challenge for victories at more typical venues.

“Before this race I don’t think I was seeing myself challenging for wins anywhere else,” he said. “Singapore maybe could be a strong track for us. On the other tracks I still feel like we are a step behind McLaren and Red Bull. But today we’ve seen that we can be very on a par with McLaren if we do everything perfect.

“I think that the upgrade has helped us in some ways today to have the same pace as them. However, for the other tracks, I don’t know whether it will be enough to completely close the gap, especially the gap we’ve seen in the previous races, not here. So we’ve got to wait and see, but we’ve done some step forward. I think we need some others.”