Mexico City GP: Charles Leclerc ‘hurt’ by performance as Paul di Resta outlines fears for Ferrari

Ferrari finished sixth and seventh after a challenging weekend in Mexico City; Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz never looked truly comfortable racing around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez; Ferrari are now just 40 points ahead of Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship

Charles Leclerc says he was “hurt” by the performance of Ferrari at the Mexico City Grand Prix, while Sky Sports F1’s Paul Di Resta admits he fears for the team after their Formula 1 drop-off in recent months.

Leclerc finished the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in sixth position, a place behind his team-mate Carlos Sainz, and most concerningly over a minute behind winner Max Verstappen.

While Verstappen looked comfortable out in front and produced a new season record for victories, Sunday’s race completed a challenging weekend for Ferrari.

The F1-75 had looked uncomfortable in its surroundings all weekend, with both drivers unable to match Mercedes or Red Bull. Leclerc had even brought an early end to his second practice session after crashing into the barriers.

“The thing that hurts is that I feel we’ve maximised everything (on race day) and even though we’ve done that, we are one minute away from Max, a huge difference,” Leclerc said post-race on Sunday.

“We need to look into that and make our bad days better, mostly because whenever we have a bad day on the Sunday it seems to be a really bad day.”

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Take a look back at the highlights of the Mexico City Grand Prix from the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez

Sainz indicated that the team knew about the ‘compromises’ they would have to endure coming into the weekend though, with the race being held in different conditions to the majority on the calendar.

“With the altitude we knew we were going to lose quite a bit of performance,” he said.

“More than what we expected and we were just off the pace But, I haven’t done a race in a month, so to get back into it and have a full race, pace management, complete the race and learn from the car, I take that as a positive.”

It wasn’t Ferrari’s first difficult weekend, with the Scuderia – who looked to have the fastest car on the grid earlier this year – now without a victory since early July’s Austrian GP.

“I fear for Ferrari because since July, they’ve not really been in with a chance to win a race. They’re out of it and Mercedes have caught them,” Di Resta said.

“Mercedes have overtaken them on a Sunday. On a Saturday, I think they can still pull it out, but I fear where the Ferrari development path is going unless they’ve switched off that early when they realised it (the championship) was out of reach.

“That concept came out of the box absolutely superbly. It’s gone on and it’s not quite there.”

Every team will debrief about the events in Mexico City shortly, before turning their attentions on the penultimate race of the season in Brazil, which does feature a sprint race.