Leclerc “not worried” by Ferrari’s ‘unexplained’ drop-off in Portugal

Ferrari is still investigating the reasons for its unexplained drop in pace in Portugal last weekend but Charles Leclerc is not concerned about a repeat of the issues in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Leclerc finished sixth in Portimão after struggling during his medium tyre stint while his team-mate Carlos Sainz also suffered on the same tyre type, dropping out of the points after qualifying fifth.

With the team combing through the data for information in the days since the race, Leclerc said: “In the race, I finally managed to drive properly, but there is something we can’t explain yet.

“On the medium tyres we struggled quite a bit with both of the cars. With the soft for Carlos and the hard for me, we were strong and where we expect to be but with the medium there was just something that didn’t work for us there.

“We are just trying to understand and confirm from there. It always takes a long time to analyse the data and that is what we are going through now, but nothing worrying.”

Leclerc has finished in the points in all three races so far, with two sixth places and a fourth at Imola, but he believes this weekend in Barcelona will be a real test of whether the team has a car suitable for all types of track.

“It is a very good track to see which cars are the most complete here, because there is a bit of everything - high speed, medium speed, low speed, so it’s going to be interesting for us," added Leclerc.

“I think it’s great to pinpoint what are the weaknesses and the good points of the car. If we keep our pace [that we had] on the soft and hard as we did in Portimão we will look good here.“

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