Charles Leclerc delighted with his podium: “We were perfect in our strategy”

There will be no 10/10 for Ferrari. After nine races without a podium finish, the Team ended its long drought thanks to Charles Leclerc, 3rd in Jeddah. The Monegasque has been the Italian team's most consistent driver since the start of the season, but he had not yet managed to materialize this with a podium.

Disabled by a car lacking performance, the number 16 has seen improvement since last week in Bahrain, where he managed to qualify 2nd, on the front row. Qualifying in Saudi Arabia, however, left him frustrated: 4th, Leclerc cursed his car, believing he had done a perfect lap, but which only placed him 0 seconds behind the poleman's time. Max Verstappen.

The performance was much better on Sunday, where the SF-25 excelled in tire management, allowing Charles Leclerc to grab the podium by resisting until the checkered flag the comeback of Lando Norris. "I'm happy with my performance. It was an extremely good race, and all the stops since the beginning of the year have been exceptional, praises Leclerc, who made a supersonic stop in 2 seconds. The mechanics deserve credit for that. We often talk about pit stops when something goes wrong, but less so when everything goes well. And so far, our mechanics have been excellent in this area."

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With better qualifying, Leclerc can dream big

"We were also perfect today in terms of strategy. What we lack today is just general performance. We don't have the performance of McLaren, Red Bull, or of Mercedes, especially in qualifying, today we were way back. I think our positive point is the management of the tire degradation, which compensates a little bit for the fact that the performance of the car is not yet exactly where it should be. Once we are closer in qualifying, I think we can have some great races.

"Since I've been going in my direction, the direction I've been defending for the past three or four races, I'm pretty confident that there's a lot of performance to be found. On the other hand, it's very complicated to drive. It was one of the most physically complicated races for me, because I'm fighting with the car in every corner. But there's a lot of performance. I didn't think I'd be on the same pace as the McLarens and the Red Bulls, so it was a nice surprise."

Thanks to his podium, Charles Leclerc ranks 5th in the championship with 47 points, 16 more than his teammate. Lewis Hamilton, 3rd.