Charles Leclerc will use Austria disappointment - Ferrari

Charles Leclerc

Leclerc will use Austria disappointment - Ferrari

He missed out on his first win for a second time.

Matthew Scott

Thursday 4 July 2019 10:41

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has backed Charles Leclerc to use the disappointment of missing out on his maiden F1 race win in Austria as motivation to inspire greater successes.

For the second time in 2019, Leclerc failed to win from pole position at the end of a weekend in which he had clearly been quickest.

Earlier this year, in Bahrain, a mechanical issue cost him, while on this occasion he was unable to hold off a charge from Max Verstappen, who won after dropping back to P8 on the opening lap.

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However, the team boss of the Scuderia says his young driver has kept his chin up and is raring to go again.

"There is no difficulty to encourage him," said Binotto of Leclerc.

"He's already prepared for the next one, this gives him even more of a boost to somehow get his first victory in F1.

"Certainly he's sorry for the output, I think after qualifying it was somehow very optimistic and after the first laps of the race he was controlling the race and saw himself in a good position.

"But that's what's good in the sport, the chequered flag is only at the end of the race, and everything may happen.

"I think he's simply looking ahead at the next races as a new challenge and he's very hungry, so I'm pretty sure sooner or later it will be his time."

Ferrari's strategy came into question after pitting Leclerc to cover off Valtteri Bottas allowed Red Bull to keep Verstappen out for longer, handing him the crucial grip advantage later in the race.

However, Binotto believes the decision to start Leclerc on soft tyres was correct, hinting that Sebastian Vettel's pneumatic issues in Q3, which left him down the grid, were more costly.

"I think that was a good choice because we are ahead and we have only to react to Valtteri whatever tyres we are on.

"And I think with the soft tyres we got a great advantage [at] the first pit stop which put us in that respect in a good position.

"If there is anything on which I regret it's only the quali of Seb because certainly having Seb higher on the grid would have made things a lot easier."