Leclerc: A really lonely race

Ferrari were anonymous in Mexico never playing a major factor in the race as the languished in the upper midfield, as Carlos Sainz qualified fifth compared to a seventh for Charles Leclerc, not what we have come to expect from the Monegasque who has the most poles so far in 2022.

But the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was not a happy hunting ground for the F1-75, as Sainz and Leclerc finished the race fifth and sixth respectively, a minute away from race winner Max Verstappen.

"It was really lonely," Leclerc told Formula 1's official website. "Just with Carlos, cruising until the end, way too slow for the guys in front; much quicker than the guys behind.

"So we just did our strategy, focused on ourselves, tried to maximise our package, which we did, but we are one minute behind the leaders.

"So we need to understand why our up and downs… whenever we are in a down, it seems to be a big one. So we need to look into it in order to be a bit more consistent – even on our bad days," he urged.

“It’s huge, but I don’t have the explanation yet," Leclerc said of Ferrari's slump. "I believe we were losing quite a lot of time down the straights.

"Whether this was where all of it was coming from, I doubt it, but we need to analyse everything and make a step forward," he concluded.

Sainz was satisfied with his personal performance claiming there was not much more he could've done; he said: "I think I drove a pretty good race but when you see the distance to the leaders there was not much more in it.

"We know the compromises we had to take for this weekend, we knew going into the race that we were going to be slow, but we maximised the points that the car could take," he said of Ferrari's power unit troubles.

"At least on a positive note, we didn’t lose too much and we can focus on Brazil and Abu Dhabi where we expect to be back on the pace," the Spaniard added.

Ferrari could not run their power units at full power at the heights of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2.2km above see level, as their smaller turbos were struggling with the thin air at such an altitude, which is what Sainz referred to.

However, Mattia Binotto claims that was not the only problem; he noted: "The compromise in terms of power unit, we were not at our best performance for the weekend .

"I don’t think that it needs explaining. That’s part of the equation. There is more than that. There is certainly more than that. It’s something which we need to look at and there is not a clear answer right now. So, the ride was not great. The balance was not great," he explained.