Charles Leclerc said Ferrari needs to learn from Red Bull’s race-day decision making after a failed slick-tyre start on a damp grid at Sepang. The comments and race details are reported in the provided source, which quotes Leclerc at length.
The gamble that sank the start
The source reports that Leclerc and team-mate Lewis Hamilton started on soft slicks, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar chose intermediates on a mixed-weather grid. According to the report, the slicks call immediately hurt Ferrari’s launch: Hamilton fell down the order and Leclerc pitted at the end of lap one.
“We thought we were doing the right thing”
Leclerc is quoted in the source as saying, “I was aligned with the team. It was a close call as it is always in these conditions and we’ll speak whether to split the cars in those conditions is the best possible way.” He added, “when you split the cars, by definition there’s one very wrong choice and one very good choice,” before pointing to Red Bull: “there’s one team in particular – and that is Red Bull – that gets it right most of the time with both cars. For that we need to understand what they are doing better than we do.”
Why not split? Only two teams didn’t
Per the source, Ferrari was one of six teams to start on slicks—but only Ferrari and Alpine did not split strategies across their drivers. The report says the track was drying but still held water, and by lap 13 the rest of the field had moved off intermediates for good.
Leclerc on the call: intuition vs. hidden water
Leclerc described the choice as guesswork in changing conditions. “It’s very difficult… it was based on intuition, on looking at the ground, and the surface looked pretty dry,” he said in the source. “The biggest question mark… is how much water there is in the holes of the tarmac… and that’s why the slick ended up being the wrong decision.”
Recovery—and a reminder
The source states that Hamilton and Leclerc recovered to third and fourth, helped by George Russell retiring with five laps to go. Leclerc said, “Kimi [Antonelli] and Max were just too strong for us today… we finished P3, P4,” calling it “a strange race” where early setbacks and late breaks “balanced each other out.”
Context from the source
The source also credits Red Bull’s sharp operations under chief strategist Hannah Schmitz, and reports Verstappen won from pole for his 72nd grand prix victory at Sepang.
Note: All race specifics, quotes, and attributions above come from the provided source text.
