Charles Leclerc started the Belgian Grand Prix from pole position and ended up with a podium, but he's not taking much satisfaction from how Ferrari fared this weekend.
Leclerc had been surprised to finish Saturday's qualifying session in P2, which meant he was promoted top pole on Sunday as a result of Max Verstappen's ten place grid penalty for taking a new engine this weekend.
But he had been realistic about his prospects in the race, with Sergio Perez alongside him on the front row in the Red Bull, Lewis Hamilton starting from third, and McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri immediately behind.
Leclerc maintained the lead into La Source, but Hamilton was simply too fast and the Mercedes blew past him down the Kemmel Straight the minute DRS was available.
Although he briefly regained the lead during the first round of pit stops, he was never in front again after lap 12. It looked like he had missed out on a podium when Oscar Piastri passed him for third on lap 36.
Although the post-race disqualification of race winner George Russell subsequently returned him to the podium place, Leclerc couldn't take much solace from the way Ferrari had been outclassed by their rivals in Spa.
"It's very simple what happened, we were just not fast enough," was his blunt assessment of the situation when he spoke to the media in the paddock after the finish. “I felt like we were the fourth fastest car today.
“McLaren and Red Bull were expected, but Mercedes was faster than expected," he continued. “On a normal race, dry track like today, it's very difficult to keep them behind on a track like this."
Leclerc did manage to thwart the efforts of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to pass him in the closing stages of the race, which was what put him in a position to pick up the lucky podium place hours later.
We did a good job to keep Max and Lando behind at the end, but fourth was the best we hoped for today," he said at the time ahead of the breaking news of Russell's disqualification.
But the realisation that Ferrari was now running behind Mercedes was not the way Leclerc wanted to be going into the summer break.
“I think fourth was what I thought would be the best result possible today with two McLarens in front and one Red Bull," he said. "If it was a Red Bull in front then I think it would have been a positive weekend.
"But it was a Mercedes. We thought we were on par with them, but they had the edge on us," he lamented. “We thought that we were on a par with them so it's worse than expected. I don't consider this result a very positive one.
"In terms of tyres and strategy, we had expected to see a lot more graining on the hard but they worked well and we struggled more with the medium. I thought we were stopping too early for the first stop, but with hindsight the hard was a really good tyre
©Ferrari
“There was more bouncing at the end of the race, more when we were pushing at high speed, so obviously more struggles we have with it," he added. "In the last stint a little bit more, but it wasn't crazy.
"I had hoped for a better result going into the holidays, but that's how it is," he sighed. "And at least I know I got everything I could out of the car."
Leclerc's team mate Carlos Sainz was feeling similarly deflated. He started from seventh place and tried an alternate tyre strategy, starting on hard tyres and running 22 laps into the race before making his first piut stop.
"We decided to start on a different strategy from everyone around us. The start and the first stint were very good, but unfortunately, I think we didn't have enough pace to make it work to our advantage."
©Ferrari
The strategy put him into the lead for a spell, but his second stint on mediums lasted only seven laps and his second stop dropped him to eighth behind Perez, although he did get the better of the Red Bull on lap 39.
"I felt like we were on for a podium, and then as soon as everyone put their hards on, you could see which pace everyone was doing," he said.
"My last stint I felt very competitive and quick, then when they told me a lot of times of the others, I was like, ‘no, not quite as quick as I wished’.
"I think still the two or three tenths," he said when asked what he felt the difference was in time between Ferrari and the other front runners.
Asked if he felt Ferrari had done anything to close that gap this weekend, Sainz was bluntly honest: “When you see the pace of Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren in the race, I don't think so.
"It's been a challenging first half of the season for many different reasons," he admitted. "But I'm sure that after the summer break, we will come back stronger."
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