Charles Leclerc deliberately waited for Sergio Perez at the end of the Abu Dhabi GP and even let him pass to open a five-second gap on George Russell. This was necessary so that Perez would finish ahead of George Russell despite a time penalty. In the end, Ferrari finished third in the constructors’ championship.
“It was ‘all in’ during the last minutes of the race because Checo had received a five-second time penalty,” Charles Leclerc explains his maneuver at the end of the race. “We had to try to help him find a way to finish five seconds ahead of George. I tried to give him DRS and a slipstream but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.”
“It’s just a shame that we finished third in the constructors’ championship. That battle for second place was the only thing that mattered to me at the end of the season and we were not successful in that.”
Things looked good at the start of the race, and Leclerc even seemed to take the lead in the race. In his Ferrari he attacked Verstappen several times during the first lap, but in the end Leclerc remained second.
“I definitely wanted to try to take first place, but we also know that during the race we usually lack some performance compared to them,” Leclerc reflected on the start of the race. “So even if I had passed Max then, he would have passed me three or four laps later.”
“In the end, my only goal was to beat Mercedes so I didn’t want to put too much strain on my tires or lose too much time competing with Max. But yeah, it was fun.”