{"id":42976,"date":"2026-03-08T12:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42976"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:04:34","slug":"leclerc-positively-surprised-by-ferrari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42976","title":{"rendered":"Leclerc ‘positively surprised’ by Ferrari"},"content":{"rendered":"
Charles Leclerc said he was “positively surprised” by Ferrari’s performance after coming third in Sunday’s season-opener in Melbourne but admitted a lot of work was needed to reel in Mercedes.<\/p>\n

The Monaco driver started fourth on the grid but had a lightning start to surge past pole-sitter George Russell and his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n

It sparked a thrilling battle with the lead changing hands multiple times before Mercedes had a better pit-stop strategy, then used sheer pace to pull clear and take the top two places.<\/p>\n

“Very pleased is maybe a big word, but I am positively surprised, for sure, after qualifying yesterday,” said Leclerc, who saw Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton finish a place behind in fourth.<\/p>\n

“I think yesterday we were not in our optimum window, but we are still very, very far off the Mercedes in qualifying, in the race, though we seem to be closer.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t mean we are the fastest car, but we are more reasonably behind. So lots of work to be done.<\/p>\n

“And I think this championship, anyway, will be won by development and upgrades.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got plenty coming,” he added. “I’m sure all the others do too, but hopefully we are on the better side of things.”<\/p>\n

The Melbourne race was essentially won when both the Mercedes pitted during an early virtual safety car phase and the Ferraris stayed out.<\/p>\n

When the Scuderia pair made their stops, they emerged behind Russell and Antonelli, gambling that the Mercedes pair would need to go in again for fresh tyres.<\/p>\n

But they kept going and there was no way back for Leclerc.<\/p>\n

“I don’t regret it. It was a conscious choice,” he said.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc said he was “positively surprised” by Ferrari’s performance after coming third in Sunday’s season-opener in Melbourne but admitted a lot of work was needed to reel in Mercedes. The Monaco driver started fourth on the grid but had a lightning start to surge past pole-sitter George Russell and his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}