General
Leclerc after scoring ten points: "Could prove very valuable"
- GPblog.com
Charles Leclerc had to come from the very back and eventually crossed the finish line in fifth place. The Ferrari driver picked up ten important points in the world championship, although he did see Max Verstappen run out a good bit. Leclerc is satisfied that the damage did not turn out to be even greater.
"I enjoyed the last part of the race," Leclerc told Sky and others. "The middle part and the first part were very frustrating. I was just stuck in a DRS train, then stuck behind Esteban [Ocon] who was driving on new tyres and out of Turn 10 he had very good traction, I just couldn't get past him."
Pit stop error for Leclerc
When swapping the hard tyres for mediums, something went wrong with Ferrari's pit crew. The pit stop lasted longer than five seconds, which ultimately proved to be very expensive seconds. "As a result, I got stuck behind a DRS train again. The end was fun. I had a lot of overtaking. P5 was the best we could have done today. It's ten points that could prove very valuable in the end."
The difference between Verstappen and Leclerc has now increased to 49 points. Carlos Sainz was still important for Leclerc by setting the fastest lap time and thus taking an extra World Championship point away from Verstappen. Otherwise the difference would have been exactly 50 points.