‘Worst start ever’ - Leclerc and Ferrari’s pain continues 

A collision with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll led to Leclerc spinning out on the opening lap of Sunday’s race in Melbourne for his second DNF in three races. 

Leclerc has endured a torrid start to 2023, with an engine failure forcing him into retirement at the season-opener in Bahrain and leading to a grid penalty for using too many power unit components at the second round in Saudi Arabia. 

The Monegasque’s only finish so far this season was a seventh place in Jeddah, leaving him 10th in the championship with just six points. It marks his worst start to a campaign with Ferrari. 

“Frustrated, obviously,” Leclerc summed up after the race.  

“It’s the worst ever start of the season. Only six points or eight points, I don’t know what it is in total. Frustrating.”

Despite his frustrations, Leclerc stopped short of pinning the blame for his first-lap incident on Stroll. 

“At turn one I took it easy and turn three I wasn’t really planning an overtake at first on Lance,” he explained. “Then I saw that he had to brake very early because of Fernando in front that was braking early.

“So I released the brakes and put myself alongside Lance and then Fernando had to brake even more. So Lance found himself between me and Fernando and he couldn’t turn in and we had contact.

“I’m not pointing the finger at Lance because I think he just had no choice once Fernando slowed down the car the second time. 

“For me it was just impossible to see whether Lance was staying behind Fernando. He was just in between, obviously I didn’t think that he was there. So it’s just extremely frustrating.”

With Carlos Sainz’s five-second time penalty relegating him from fourth to 12th, Ferrari failed to score points in Australia as their miserable start to the season continued. 

Ferrari remain fourth in the constructors' standings but are already nearly 100 points behind Red Bull and 30 points adrift of third-placed Mercedes.

But team principal Frederic Vasseur insisted there are still “positives” to take from the weekend. 

"If you look at the weekend, we are disappointed with the result but the level of performance was there,” Vasseur told C4. 

“We didn’t put everything together but the pace was good [in the race]. We had to do an extra pit stop but except for this the pace was okay. 

“It’s a real step forward compared to a couple of weeks ago in Jeddah. Now we need to do another step in Baku.”