Charles Leclerc expressed frustration after crashing his Ferrari SF-25 on Saturday’s Sprint race in Miami due to aquaplaning issues with intermediate tires. The 27-year-old driver was left feeling like a passenger as he lost control of the car before it had even begun.
“I felt a bit like a passenger because it’s in a straight line and it’s not like you are pushing in a straight line, so I was just cruising until I completely lost control of the car,” Leclerc said. He blamed himself for the incident and acknowledged that using intermediate tires might not have been the best choice.
However, Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton salvaged his team’s Saturday with a impressive performance. Starting from seventh on the grid, Hamilton moved up to sixth before an early change to slick tires saw him climb to third place by the time he took the checkered flag.
Hamilton credited himself and Leclerc for narrowly avoiding a crash during their sighting laps, saying “I had exactly the same moment because I was right behind him and somehow [the car] just stopped going towards the wall right at the last moment.”
The incident moved Hamilton into sixth place in the drivers’ championship, only one point behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Leclerc remains fifth, ten points clear of his teammate.
Source: https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/44983765/ferrari-charles-leclerc-pre-sprint-crash-felt-passenger