05/07/2026
Interesting because Iāve Heard Leclerc tell the French media at least he changed something after the sprint.
Q: (David Fioux ā LāEquipe) Charles, how is it possible, here on your right, how is it possible for things to change so much on a car? Yesterday youāve talked about philosophical matters on your car. But as far as Iām concerned, I donāt know that philosophy can make a car go any faster.
CL: Yeah, I mean, when I say philosophical, itās more about small details that just fit my driving a little bit better in a particular phase of the corner. I donāt want to go too much into detail there. But itās just a few things that I saw on the data on Friday night and I was like, Ā«Ā OK, that might be things that just donāt fit with my driving style.Ā Ā» And we changed those few things from sprint race to qualifying and that was a lot better. So yeah, I was very proud of the work weāve done to see that because I think this kind of change is not really so black and white. You just donāt look at data and say, Ā«Ā My God, OK, this is what we need to change.Ā Ā» Itās intuition mixed with feeling. Then we went for it and it was actually a very successful direction for me. I was very happy.
HAM : And what gives me confidence is, you know, Iāve, Iāve, you know, coming into this weekend, the simulator said that we should start, um, i-in a much different place with the, with the setup, and I and my engineers started toā decided to stay with one, uh, in, in the direction that we would normally go. Charles started under where he was, where the sim would s-say to go, and then ended up my philosophy and the di-direction that I was taking was ultimately the right one, and, and he migrated that way. And itās good to see that that direction that I have pushed for is paying off. And, um, and, and, now we just gotta continue to make changes and continue to push. Weāve gotta continue to bring upgrades. Uh, Spaās gonna be long straights. But, um, yeah. Uh, and ultimately, Iāve gotta do a better job than I did this weekend
