Charles Leclerc: “Nowhere” on pace, Lewis Hamilton was only positive after British GP disaster

Charles Leclerc says Lewis Hamilton’s F1 British Grand Prix performance was the only positive he could take from the weekend.

Leclerc endured a disastrous weekend at Silverstone, finishing the race in 14th.

His race started to fall apart when he switched to slick tyres before the start of the race.

With the track still too wet, Leclerc dropped down the order.

A better stint on the intermediates put Leclerc back in contention for a top eighth - and a points finish - but a mistake put him well outside the top 10.

While it was a disappointing weekend on his side of the garage, he’s taking some encouragement from Hamilton’s display.

“I didn’t see Lewis’ race. But for sure he was much, much stronger than me,” Leclerc said.

“The only positive I would say is that whenever you’ve got Lewis in the same car. And being much faster than me today. There are definitely some things that I would learn from a day like this.

“Because when you struggle as a team and the two drivers are struggling. It’s more difficult to know what’s going wrong.There we’ve got an example of extreme in both ways.”

Leclerc’s pace was “nowhere” in British GP

Charles Leclerc spent a significant portion of the race stuck behind the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc conceded that his pace was simply “nowhere” and that a better strategy wouldn’t have done much for his race result.

“Oh, I’m not sure. I mean, for sure this did not help. However, we were kind of nowhere the whole race. And when I say nowhere, it’s like really nowhere,” Leclerc explained.

“I was a second off and on top of that I was doing lots of mistakes.I was really struggling to keep the car on track. So, it was an incredibly difficult day. I needed to analyse what was going on.

“What did I do in terms of tools, in terms of setup, in terms of driving that made everything worse. Because today was extremely difficult.”

Leclerc was also involved in an incident with former Ferrari teammate Sainz.

As Leclerc defended into Stowe corner at the end of the back straight, he lost control of his Ferrari, taking him and Sainz off into the gravel trap.

Leclerc revealed that he apologised to Sainz after the race.

“I did speak to him. I mean, in Turn 4 it was aggressive,” Leclerc added.

“But I don’t regret that. That’s the way I had to do it. It was the only place on track that I could overtake. The one in Turn 15 was a mistake from my side.And that was clearly my fault.

“And I went to see Carlos for that. Because I know it cost him points.And I’m sorry for that.”