'Most difficult weekend of my F1 career'- Charles Leclerc's glum Canada GP verdict

Charles Leclerc says he will look to his Ferrari Formula 1 team mate Lewis Hamilton as a “benchmark” after experiencing what he termed the “most difficult weekend” of his F1 career in Montreal.

Charles Leclerc had been struggling with brakes earlier in the weekend, but stressed that in the race, tyres were his main issue.

Helped by attrition ahead, Leclerc eventually finished fourth after a scrappy race, his fortunes contrasting with those of Lewis Hamilton, who passed Max Verstappen in the latter stages to claim second place.

Asked by Crash.net if fourth was at least some reward after his difficult weekend, he stressed that he didn’t see it that way.

“I don't take that as a reward, I'd say that it's more out of luck than a reward of my hard work and incredible job,” he said.

“It's been a nightmare of a weekend, probably the most difficult weekend out of my F1 career.

“I've had zero feelings with the tyres since FP1 first lap until the very last lap of the race, and even in the last 15 laps I was driving a second and a half off the pace just to not take risk.

“And even in these kinds of laps, I still had moments where I was like, that's too close for comfort.

“It's been an incredibly difficult weekend. The good thing is that I've got a great benchmark in on a weekend like this with Lewis being absolutely incredible this weekend and having an amazing feeling with the car.

“So I can obviously analyse and understand why there was that much difference. But yeah, it's been a very tricky week.”

Asked what the cause was, he conceded that Canada is not one of his preferred venues.

"I'll say Montreal as a track is not a track where historically I've been particularly strong,” he said.

“A bit like Melbourne. Melbourne and here are two tracks where I struggle particularly a lot with my driving style.

“Without going too much into the details, but just the rhythm of the corners with my driving style doesn't fit well, and if you put on top of that the issues we've had on the brakes on Friday, which I never really got the rhythm on Friday.

“And then on Saturday, it was more about the tyres, but the tyres are the same for everybody.

“It’s not like I was in a much worse place compared to Lewis, but I just had zero feeling, and I couldn't take the rhythm, and today was no exception.

“On the first stint, I thought there was a possibility to actually look forward and maybe fight for the podium.

“As soon as I put the medium, I understood, yeah, it will be a miracle if I kept that fourth place.”

He added: “The result is much better than the feeling I had in the car, but in those kinds of weekends when the feeling is not there, my job is to maximise the points, which with a bit of luck, actually P4 is a good result, considering the very bad sensation I had.”

Hamilton stressed in Montreal that, having abandoned the Maranello sim, he had found his own set-up direction.

However, Leclerc insisted that any differences between the cars had not impacted his own situation.

“There's none of the performance we are seeing today down to a setup,” he said.

“You can say there's a tenth in a setup, but at the end of the day, it's not that much. I think in F1 now we are speaking about such small details.

“So no, no, no, it's more about my feeling, and just the way I drove today. But not having the feeling, you don't push the car to its limit, and I can feel I'm completely off the pace.

“It's not like I'm pushing, and then you can say, okay, the setup is not exactly where you want to be. By not having confidence on a day like this, I just didn't push off."