Charles Leclerc ‘hurt’ by Ferrari performance after weekend to forget in Mexico

Leclerc finished sixth in Mexico City and is without a race victory since the Austrian GP in July

Charles Leclerc insists the performance of Ferrari “hurt” after the Scuderia failed to fire over the Mexican Grand Prix weekend.

The Monegasque driver finished sixth in Mexico City, a place behind team-mate Carlos Sainz, in an uneventful race for Ferrari in the midfield.

Leclerc is now five points behind Red Bull’s Sergio Perez with two races to go - Brazil and Abu Dhabi - and has not won a race since the Austrian Grand Prix in early July.

Beyond that though, Leclerc was concerned how far off the pace Ferrari were on Sunday, given they finished over a minute behind race winner Max Verstappen.

“The thing that hurts is that I feel we’ve maximised everything (on race day) and even though we’ve done that, we are one minute away from Max, a huge difference,” Leclerc said.

“We need to look into that and make our bad days better, mostly because whenever we have a bad day on the Sunday it seems to be a really bad day.”

Sainz, who has dropped below Lewis Hamilton to sixth in the Driver Standings, endured a similarly dull race in fifth place but - after two DNFs in a row - was simply pleased to see the chequered flag.

Charles Leclerc insists the performance of Ferrari “hurt” at the Mexican Grand Prix (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

“With the altitude we knew we were going to lose quite a bit of performance,” the Spaniard said.

“More than what we expected and we were just off the pace But, I haven’t done a race in a month, so to get back into it and have a full race, pace management, complete the race and learn from the car, I take that as a positive.”

Such has been the drop-off in form for Ferrari in recent weeks, Mercedes are just 40 points off the Scuderia in the Constructors’ Standings heading into the final two races of the season, with champions Red Bull a monumental 209 points clear.