Leclerc insists Ferrari ‘couldn’t have won’ regardless of strategy

Charles Leclerc doesn’t think Ferrari had the pace to challenge Mercedes for victory even if there had been no virtual safety car interventions in Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix

Leclerc launched into the lead from fourth on the grid with a rocket start and staged a thrilling close battle with polesitter George Russell for the first 10 laps of Sunday’s season-opening race in Melbourne.

But Mercedes outpaced and out-strategised Ferrari as Russell ultimately kicked off F1’s new era by leading a comfortable one-two for the Silver Arrows ahead of team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Ferrari’s decision to stay out during an early VSC effectively took it out of contention for the win and handed control to Mercedes, who took advantage of a cheap stop with both its cars.

But Leclerc, who pipped team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the final spot on the podium, doubts a win was ever on the cards for Ferrari, believing Mercedes was just too strong.

“I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong,” Leclerc said when asked if he thinks Ferrari could have challenged for victory without the VSCs.

“It looked like Mercedes maybe had a bit more pace than us today, but maybe not as much as what we saw yesterday, so that’s a good thing. But I don’t think we could have won.”

And Leclerc insisted he had no regrets about Ferrari’s strategy.

“I don’t regret it. It was a wanted choice, a wanted and conscious choice,” the Monegasque explained.

“Looking from FP1 to now, there’s been at every session a car that was stopped, at least one car. We knew that there were very high chances that this was not going to be the only VSC of the race, and so we thought that it was better for us to maybe wait for another one.

"That’s always a gamble, of course. We didn’t know that this would happen. The reality is we’ve had other VSCs after, and one which was particularly well placed, but unfortunately for this one for us the pit entry was closed and we couldn’t take it.

“So, we were a little bit unlucky on that side, but it was a conscious choice again and I don’t really regret it.”

Hamilton appeared to question Ferrari’s strategy during the race when the seven-time world champion was heard saying over team radio: “At least one of us should have come in!”

But in response to a question from Crash.net, Hamilton stressed he has no “mixed emotions” over the decision.

“We got a third and fourth,” Hamilton said. “I think ultimately the Mercedes were quicker than us and that’s probably the maximum result we were going to get today.

“We’ll definitely go and look to see if stopping would have been better. When I saw one Mercedes go in, one ahead of me, one behind me, I thought we should have come in, or at least one of us should have come in and covered.

“But we’ll go have a look at it and see what we could have done better.”