Leclerc was left frustrated despite brilliant overtaking manoeuvres

F1 Grand Prix, GP Emilia-Romagna, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Despite having completed a series of great overtaking manoeuvres during the 63-lap Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was left frustrated by the two unfortunate interruptions that heavily compromised his strategy.

Ferrari endured a difficult qualifying day on home turf at Imola as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton ended up only 11th and 12th respectively.

After a poor qualifying, the team took an aggressive approach to the race, splitting the strategies between the two drivers, with Leclerc starting from 11th on Medium tyres and Hamilton from 12th on Hards.

The Monegasque passed Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly ealy on, and he took an aggressive approach by pitting for hards on Lap 10. The move paid off and he was able to undercut several cars, getting up to eighth, thanks also to a strong pace.

The Virtual Safety Car was required on lap 29 when Esteban Ocon parked at the side of the track, and Ferrari brought its teo drivers in for fresh tyres. At the restart, Hamilton was seventh and Leclerc tenth. On fresh rubber, the SF-25s passed both the Aston Martins, Kimi Antonelli and Hadjar, rapidly moving up to fifth and sixth places.

However, there wasanother interruption on Lap 46 when Antonelli had to park at the side of the track in a position from which it was difficult to have the car removed and so the Safety Car was brought into play.

Hamilton came in again for a set of hards, rejoining the action in seventh place. By contrast, Leclerc stayed out in fourth place as he had no more sets of medium or hards available.

At the restart, Hamilton made good use of his new tyres to pass George Russell and set off in pursuit of Alex Albon, who was fighting with Leclerc. As the Monegasque and the Thai driver were fighting hard, Hamilton managed to slip past Albon when the Williams driver cut the first chicane, which allowed Hamilton to slip past.

The seven-time F1 champion then got ahead of his team-mate to take fourth place. For the last two laps, he then pursued third placed Oscar Piastri who was on old tyres, but the Australian was able to hang on. By contrast, Leclerc was asked by the team to give back position to Albon after the move at the first chicane, which was under investigation, as any penalty could have cost him several places.

The 63-lap Imola race left Leclerc to rue the safety car interruptions as both the VSC and the SC came in at a time which was unfortunate for his aggressive strategy.

"In some races, things just don’t align and today, that was the case for me. We were really unlucky with the timing of the VCS and SC. I couldn’t take advantage of the first one, and during the second, we didn’t have the right tyres available, but I’ve got no regrets on this score.

"P6 is not that bad considering how difficult a weekend it has been for us, but this is not the result we are aiming for. Our real focus has to be on improving our qualifying performance, because in the race, the car is fast.

“I was very frustrated with the Safety Car, especially because the first one was in completely the wrong place for my strategy, [then] the second one was horrible because I couldn’t take it because I had no tyres left, so it was just a frustrating day.

“But it’s just the way it is. It’s always going to be frustrating when you are fighting for P4, P5, P6. I feel that I’m driving frustrated already so, yeah, it’s just annoying.”

As for this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, Leclerc expects a challenging time on home turf as the Monegasque thinks that the short, narrow track in Monte Carlo will expose his SF25's weaknesses.

"Heading to Monaco now, we expect it to be a challenging weekend. It’s a circuit that will expose our car’s weaknesses. It is very specific and you have to run the car differently than anywhere else, so I hope we will capitalise on that and bring home the best result possible," concluded Leclerc.