Charles Leclerc hails Styrian GP comeback drive "one of my best performances in F1"

Leclerc in Austria — Photo: © LAT Images

Styrian Grand Prix

Leclerc hails Styrian GP comeback drive "one of my best performances in F1"

Leclerc pitted with damage on lap one but managed to get back to seventh

Ewan Gale

Sunday 27 June 2021 19:15

Charles Leclerc has ranked his comeback drive at the Styrian Grand Prix as "one of my best performances in F1".

The Ferrari driver was involved in a scruffy first lap and was forced to pit after losing his front wing endplate in contact with AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly, an incident that caused the Frenchman to retire from the race.

Despite dropping to 18th and being forced to switch to a two-stop strategy when almost the entire field was on a one-stop, Leclerc clawed his way through the field to claim seventh, in stark contrast to the team's difficulties last week in France.

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"If we look at the first lap, it has been an incredible race for us and we have been incredibly quick but obviously there was this first lap where it basically stopped us from doing something much, much better today," conceded Leclerc.

"It was a big opportunity. The pace was incredible. The race was...it was probably one of my best performances in Formula 1 apart from lap one but this is life."

On his collision with Gasly, he added: "To be honest, I need to rewatch the images from outside.

"I have no idea whether Pierre went a little bit to the left and I went a little bit to the right at the same time. I guess it's a little bit of both and at the end, we just touched."

Leclerc excited by second Austrian race

F1 returns to the Red Bull Ring next weekend to complete the first triple-header of the season.

With Ferrari's race pace providing optimism in the team's battle with McLaren in the battle for third in the constructors', Leclerc is eager to get back in the car.

"I'm really looking forward to next weekend," he said. "Obviously, today it was really special. It has been a long time that we have [had] this type of race pace so it was good to see."