Charles Leclerc says Ferrari is unlikely to finish second in Formula 1’s constructors’ championship despite back-to-back podiums in Austin and Mexico City.
With Leclerc behind Lando Norris in Mexico City, Ferrari is back in second place, one point behind Mercedes and 10 points behind Red Bull. A week earlier, at the US Grand Prix, Leclerc finished third behind Max Verstappen and Norris, but said he was wary of the obvious pace of his Ferrari rivals.
“It’s going to be very tough,” Leclerc said. “If you look back at the last two weekends, yes, and look back at the previous two weekends, you didn’t.
“We just need to focus race by race and perform perfectly like we did in the last two races. As always, it obviously paid off. It’s very difficult to maintain this level of performance all the time, but that’s the standard we should aim for and I hope it’s enough to take second place in the constructors’ championship.”
Leclerc is pessimistic about Ferrari’s hopes of beating Mercedes and Ferrari, but admits he was surprised to have finished on the podium in each of the last two races.
“We didn’t expect to be able to repeat what we did in Austin. We knew we had a perfect performance in Austin, but we also knew that on paper we might not have had the pace of McLaren or Red Bull. It was a surprise to be on the podium in that race, but we were able to do it again and we were one step higher on the podium.”
“As you already know, in terms of the pure performance of the car, it’s been a long time since we changed our minds for 2026, so we’ll probably suffer a little bit more towards the second half of the season. But we ran the weekend perfectly and managed to get our second podium in a row. It’s a really great feeling.
Leclerc was under heavy pressure from Verstappen in the closing stages of Sunday’s race, and the Ferrari driver believes he likely would have been overtaken had it not been for the second half of the virtual safety car.
“I was very happy to see (VSC) come out in the last two laps. Without VSC, I think Max would have been more likely to be passed than me to stay in front,” he admitted. “There was no feeling from start to finish, especially with the medium tires.
“Obviously I was tempted to make two stops, but I don’t know. In the end I just stuck to the tires I had on, the medium tires, and tried to make it work. And we did that. It was close. We got a little bit lucky, but I’m proud that we were able to hang on.”
