Emilia Romagna GP: Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc admits ‘pushing too hard’ after Max Verstappen wins Imola Sprint

Charles Leclerc will start in second position on the grid with Max Verstappen ahead of him; Red Bull and Ferrari also lock out second row with Sergio Perez third and Carlos Sainz fourth; watch the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix live on Sky Sports F1 from 12:30pm on Sunday

Charles Leclerc admitted he “pushed too hard” at the start of Saturday’s Sprint, but believes Ferrari have learned key lessons going into Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Having qualified second on Friday for the Sprint in Imola, Leclerc got a brilliant start to leapfrog Max Verstappen off the line and looked set for victory as he maintained a solid margin for much of the race.

However, despite the Sprint being a shortened format – just 21 laps in total – Leclerc suffered from tyre degradation in the closing stages, enabling Verstappen to overtake him at the start of the penultimate lap.

“I pushed hard at the beginning to try and not be too vulnerable with Max having the DRS behind,” Leclerc told Sky Sports.

“I feel like I paid the price for doing that at the end of the race. It felt like, perhaps, they [Red Bull] had something more today and he [Verstappen] kept it towards the end of the race and overtook me when it mattered.

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Take a look at Max Verstappen pulling off a late overtake on Leclerc to earn himself the win in the Sprint Race

“We’ll work and try to maximise our package for tomorrow. Hopefully, with the same style as today but without the degradation that we had at the end, and a better race overall.”

Verstappen: It was a waiting game

As he did last season, Verstappen claimed victory in the first Sprint of the campaign, as the format which was introduced last year was used at Imola for the first time.

The reigning world champion looked to have blown his chances of victory at the start, but produced a patient performance to claim the – newly increased for this season – eight-point reward for winning.

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Verstappen says Red Bull need to analyse his poor start but ‘good tyre deg’ saved them as they claimed victory in the Sprint

“Charles was definitely struggling more with the graining,” Verstappen said. “Then, of course, I could close up and use the DRS to get by.

“But I think it was more just of a bit of a waiting game, because every lap it seemed like the gap or the difference between the two cars was getting bigger in terms of a lap times.

“Of course, at one point, it’s very tricky once you get around that one-second window to get super close.

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Verstappen wins the Sprint Race at the Emilia-Romagna GP

“Of course, with these cars, it is better to follow. But it’s still very hard to pass. You still need to use the tyres and especially with the degradation we had on the soft, getting in that DRS window, it was hard.

“But then once I got into it, I think on the second attempt we had a good little battle into Turn 2. But clearly we had a bit more pace at the end of the race.”

Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz ensured the second row will mirror the first, with the Red Bull third and Ferrari fourth.

Perez rose from seventh to third in the Sprint, while Sainz recovered from a crash in qualifying on Friday to climb from 10th to fourth.

Watch all of the action from Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix action live from 12.30pm on Sky Sports F1.