Leclerc on Vettel: I trust the team, but I need to know what happened

Charles Leclerc was clearly frustrated as a multitude of team factors meant he could only finish in P3 despite being on pole in Russia.

In a failure of Ferrari's strategy, Sebastian Vettel burst into the lead on the first lap and it appeared that team orders had suggested he surrender that lead back to Leclerc.

But instead Vettel burst into the distance, driving at an immense pace and leaving Ferrari to work out an alternative approach.

Vettel's race came to a horrible end when a power unit issue ended his involvement mid-way through, much to his and the team's frustration, and prior Leclerc had made it clear he was unhappy with the German's actions in remaining ahead.

Speaking to Paul Di Resta after the race, he said: "At least we are quite consistent. It's a shame for the team to not have the second car up here. Mercedes are still very quick, a lot quicker compared to qualifying. So we need to work on that to trust and understand that for the next races.

"I will always trust the team but the tactic was me giving the slipstream to be one-two at the end of the straight but then I need to speak to the team to know better the situation.

"We were quite quick, we definitely had the pace to finish ahead of Valtteri [Bottas] but it was quite tricky to follow, when I would get 1.5 seconds behind him everything would overheat and it would be quite a difficult time for us.

"Third for us today is the best we could have done with a safety car."

Related

Latest F1 News

Big name driver 'very angry internally' after controversial battle

• Today 09:57

Latest F1 News

Ferrari F1 star concedes key advantage in crucial team-mate battle

• April 20, 2024 19:12