Charles Interview with Canal+
Q: You ended up fifth in that first turn, what happened at the start?
CL: Well, quite simply, when I did the start procedure and released the clutch, there was, I think, much less grip than we expected. I had quite a lot of wheelspin. then into turn 1, I was kind of squeezed between Lewis and, I think, Max. I had to back out there as well. After that, we were down to p5 and from then on it was extremely difficult to fight our way back.
What's difficult to understand is that...—it's not something that only affects us, but maybe it affects us more than the others—there's too many sessions like this [inconsistent]. The run on the soft tires wasn't too bad, the first stint on the hard tires was actually pretty good. The second stint on the hards, I had no feeling with the car at all. It was extremely difficult to understand what was going on with the tires. Then the soft tires at the end were actually quite good, but by then we were on an offset strategy compared to the others, so it's difficult to make a direct comparison. Still, the feeling was good.
It's just very difficult to find consistency with this car.
Q: It must be a hard hit for Ferrari, after the good run of races before and just before the summer break, are you leaving with a lot of questions / scratching your head?
CL: What's really strange is that this is completely the opposite of what we expected based on the last three races. The two races where we thought we'd really struggle, we finished first and second. The race where we expected to be quite competitive, we finished fourth and fifth.
But that pretty much sums up these cars in general. I think it's difficult for everyone to understand, we just have to be better than the others at figuring it out
On my side I will continue to work on understanding why the inconsistency is there in this car, why in the same tires, doing more or less the same thing, it can be so different. It’s very strange.
