Leclerc: Unfortunately, our forecasts were justified

Charles Leclerc took third place in the race in Bahrain, but withdrew from the race on lap 41 due to problems with the power plant.

Talking to the press, he hardly hid his disappointment not only because of the descent, but because of the serious lag in speed from the leaders.

Charles Leclerc (DNF): "There were no hints that something was wrong with the engine - it just completely turned off. I can't say that I feel good. Of course, the team has done a lot over the winter, but we need to keep working, because in the first race there were the first reliability problems. It's not good.

After the tests, I hoped that we were wrong in the forecasts, but now I am sure that we were absolutely right. We are very far behind Red Bull in racing pace. Unfortunately, this was expected. It was important to get the maximum possible points this weekend, but we didn't manage to do that”.

Carlos Sainz finished fourth, missing out on a podium place in the fight with Fernando Alonso.

Carlos Sainz (4th): "Even before the race, we knew that we would have problems, given the level of degradation of the rubber that we saw in the tests and in Friday's practice. From time to time we managed to take third and fourth places, but over a long distance Red Bull and Aston Martin were much faster, and their tires did not wear out as much as ours.

In the coming weeks we will have to work to eliminate this weak side of the car. I hope the following tracks will suit our car better.

Of course, there is little good in the fact that Charles has gone down. Reliability issues will worry us until we find a solution. I hope we will be able to do it quickly enough”.