Charles Leclerc vowed to raise his game to match the “incredible” performances of Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton at the past three races.
Hamilton secured his first victory as a Ferrari driver at Sunday’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix as Leclerc retired from sixth place with a hydraulic issue four laps from the finish.
The retirement rounded off a miserable weekend for Leclerc after he crashed in qualifying and lined up 10th on the grid.
Hamilton’s victory marks Ferrari’s first win since the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix and comes after two podium finishes for the seven-time world champion in Canada and Monaco.
“Lewis won with an incredible margin -- 20 seconds -- and he has been incredible in the last three weekends,” Leclerc, who is now 40 points adrift of his teammate, told Sky Sports. “He has been really on it. He deserves all of it, and now it is up to me to up my game, find this confidence with this car and put everything together.
“Hopefully, with a clean weekend -- because it’s also true that the last four weekends haven’t been very clean technically, for me we have had quite a lot of issues -- so I am just looking forward to having a clean race, taking the rhythm again and hopefully fighting at the front as well.”
Leclerc moved over for Hamilton midway through the race as their pit strategies overlapped but said he played no part in Ferrari’s success in Spain.
“I don’t want to take any credit for today’s race,” he said. “I don’t think I had a role into it at all. Lewis and the team have done the job and have actually got the win all by themselves.
“Sure, I could have stayed ahead of Lewis for two or three corners, but that would have been very stupid from me anyway.”
Leclerc added that his brake by wire and power steering systems failed simultaneously when the hydraulic issue hit.
“I had a BBW fail and no power steering anymore. Turn 2, I was in the corner and then no power steering suddenly, and then that was the end of my race.”
