Charles Leclerc ‘struggling like crazy’ and baffled by ‘incredibly difficult’ Ferrari car after poor Miami Grand Prix

Leclerc finished the race in seventh with team-mate Carlos Sainz slipping from third to fifth.

Speaking after the race, the 25-year-old said he was confused with a car that is not giving him or Sainz any “confidence”.

“I struggle to find an explanation as to why we are so far away in the race and so close in qualifying.

“We are competitive in qualifying but once we come to race day we are struggling like crazy.

“The window of our car is so narrow and whenever you get a little bit out it has huge consequences on the balance.

“It’s from one corner to the other and even in one corner sometimes you can have huge understeer which goes to huge oversteer and this is not ideal to have confidence in the car.”

Leclerc appeared to have the one-lap pace to start the race in Miami on the front row, but crashed in qualifying.

He added that the car was also struggling to perform in the windy conditions, and that Ferarri need to take action.

“We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We need to find something. We have been struggling in the race since a little time now and we need to come up with some issues.”

Both Leclerc and Sainz have also complained that the car exhibits differently on different types of tyre, which team principal Frederic Vasseur said differed for each driver.

“With Charles we were much more performant on the hard (tyre), and with Carlos much more performant on the medium,” Vasseur said. “And from one lap to the other we were a bit inconsistent.”

Leclerc added: “It’s always an unknown whether the car is going to react well, whether the tyres are going to be in the right window.

“This is just very difficult also as a driver to gain the confidence and to adapt your driving because you get from one set to the other and the car is completely in a different window.”

Leclerc is seventh in the overall standings and Sainz is in fifth with Mercedes’ George Russell sandwiched in between the Ferrari pair.

Ferrari are fourth in the constructors’ standings, behind Red Bull, Aston Martin and Mercedes.