Leclerc: I hope we can maintain this level!

      Charles Leclerc won the British Grand Prix – this is the first such success for the driver from Monaco since the fall of 2024, when he won in the USA. Lewis Hamilton finished third – the last time both Ferrari drivers stood on the podium was in the same 2024 in Abu Dhabi.

      Charles Leclerc (1st): “I am incredibly happy! Unfortunately, the end of the race was probably not what I dreamed of. Nevertheless, I won after several previous weekends that were particularly difficult.

      It seems that thanks to all the efforts we made to get the right feeling back in the SF-26, I finally understood something yesterday after the sprint. But today I still had to confirm those assumptions, and the driving experience was indeed as it should be! So I am incredibly happy.

      After Monaco, I didn’t have those right feelings, and I crashed the car at the end of qualifying. Then in the race, we had problems that prevented me from finishing. It seemed that I had a good mindset in Barcelona, but on Saturday I crashed the car again, and that affected my psychological state. Then, on Sunday, there were technical issues.

      Our situation was not the best in Austria either, but here we managed to do everything right, and I really hope we can maintain this level going forward. But I must say a huge thank you to the team for their work!

      The battle with Kimi Antonelli was very intense; he was catching up to me very quickly, and it would have been very hard to hold the first position. But when I found out he had some problems, I thought, ‘Okay, now I’m leading by a large margin, and everything should be simple from here.’

      However, towards the end of the race, the safety car came out, and we had to let the lapped cars through, so behind the safety car, we had to drive no faster than 100-120 km/h, which completely cooled my tires.

      Because of this, I was very skeptical about the restart. Of course, such an ending to the race didn’t please the fans, but under the helmet, I was happy that I wouldn’t have to do a restart and I could hold on to this victory. Overall, I am very happy!”

      Lewis Hamilton (3rd): “First of all, I must congratulate Charles! Winning this Grand Prix is a truly special experience, and our team achieved a great result, so congratulations to Ferrari!

      As for me, it just wasn’t meant to be today. First, I made a false start, for which I received a 5-second penalty, but Charles was faster than me today. My car isn’t quite right with the balance, but I did the maximum that was possible, and I’m grateful to the team for the podium. The car lacked front tire grip on the track; we misadjusted the front wing angle, which was clearly insufficient. This is both my fault and my engineer's.

      It seems we can already challenge Mercedes, although I don’t know what happened with Kimi Antonelli. We need to keep working on the car to really close the gap in pure speed, but still, this year Ferrari already has two victories, and that’s fantastic!”