Charles Leclerc dismisses Austria podium repeat as Ferrari races to solve issues

Charles Leclerc

Leclerc dismisses Austria podium repeat as Ferrari races to solve issues

Leclerc finished runner-up in 2020 Austrian GP

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 22 June 2021 15:44 Updated: 15:54

Charles Leclerc will “not get too carried away” in chasing a repeat of his runner-up finish in Austria last year after conceding Ferrari has a race against time to solve its issues following its woeful performance in France.

The Scuderia ended out of the points at the Paul Ricard Circuit, and with little time to understand its problems before returning to a track where Leclerc achieved his best result of the year last term.

Asked about his expectations in Austria, Leclerc said: “Yeah last year I came P2 but, let's say, I was a little bit lucky to get second. We did a good job as a team but there was a bit of luck in that result too.

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“So, let's not get too carried away too much by that. Coming from the weekend, it was very difficult with the race pace, we are searching for answers.

“We are going to analyse this and try to use the three days we have available in the best way we can with the team to try and understand what we can try before the race weekend in Austria.”

Ferrari suffer tyre degradation issues

High temperatures in the south of France contributed to Ferrari’s issues, with the high-speed corners causing its tyres to overheat and degrade more quickly than its competitors.

This weekend will see teams return to the Red Bull Ring in the mountainous region of Austria, where temperatures are likely to be slightly cooler but also with rain forecast, resulting in less issues with Ferrari's tyres.

Leclerc still wants answers, however. He said: “Hopefully we will find something that will help us for the race. We have a very narrow window where we managed to make the tyres work.

“Somehow it is very difficult for us to be in that particular window to make them work. We clearly didn't manage to put them in that window [in France] and we just really struggled with degradation more than others."