Charles Leclerc reveals frustrating lift and coast strategy in lonely Austrian GP

Charles Leclerc claimed the third spot on the podium in Austria

Charles Leclerc reflected on his "boring" race during the Austrian Grand Prix. Despite securing a spot on the podium with a third-place finish, the Monegasque driver lamented his start that cost him second position to McLaren driver Oscar Piastri, and having to lift and coast to manage some issues on the Ferrari SF25.

“There weren’t very many key moments on my side," the Ferrari driver explained during the post-race press conference. "Obviously, the start, I wish I had done a bit of a better job to be completely alongside Lando. Maybe that would have changed a little bit for three or four laps.

"I don’t think we had the pace to stay there in front. Basically, from Turn 1 to the end, it was a very boring race. I was on my own, just trying to manage quite a few issues that we had on our side.

"Let’s not call them issues, but we’ve got to do some management in the situation we’re in at the moment. I won’t go into the detail, but the lift and coast was a little bit frustrating.

”We paid a bit of the price for it on the first stint, but then the second and last stint were a bit more positive, which was good. But there weren’t many key moments apart from the start.”

Both Leclerc and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton were told to lift and coast throughout the Austrian Grand Prix to avoid excessive wear of the plank. This comes after the Maranello outfit suffered a double disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix due to the same issue.

Despite these challenges, the team introduced new upgrades in the form of a new floor for the race weekend at the Red Bull Ring. Leclerc confirmed that the upgrades were "definitely a step forward."

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari SF-25, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-25

Photo by: Joan Valls / Urbanandsport / NurPhoto via Getty Images

He added, "And I think it helped us to be on the podium today. The team has done an incredible job at pushing to try and get them as early as possible.

“I know that they are still pushing extremely hard to have other upgrades as soon as possible, which I hope will make another difference and will help us to be a bit closer to McLaren, to Red Bull in their good days, or to Mercedes even in their good days.

“So, yeah, we are pushing hard, and I hope that we see the result as soon as possible.”