Charles Leclerc explains how ‘very stressful’ throttle issue affected his race

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was affected by a throttle problem that threatened his lead in the closing laps of the Austrian Grand Prix.

Leclerc’s lead over Max Verstappen was around four seconds when the race resumed, following a Virtual Safety Car deployed when Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari power unit let go heading into Turn 4.

With the two leaders having had the chance to fit fresh tyres under the VSC, Leclerc and Verstappen traded blows as the Dutch driver did his best to catch up on the Monegasque and apply the pressure for a race win.

Added to Leclerc’s stresses was a throttle problem that Leclerc radioed in to ask: “What’s happening with the throttle?”

He was told by his engineer that “sometimes it’s not coming back to zero,” and, after the race, Leclerc explained what that meant for his driving as he tried to maintain his lead over the looming Verstappen.

“I knew it was not a problem with the engine,” Leclerc said, admitting the timing was “weird” as it began occurring at roughly the same moment as Sainz’s engine failure.

“It was really the pedal that was feeling weird. First at pick up and then, at the end, it would not come back to zero. But yeah, luckily it went until the end of the race.”

Leclerc’s pace remained consistent in the 1:08s despite the problem, with Verstappen only managing to close, at best, a handful of tenths a lap – the Dutch driver closed up to finish 1.5 seconds behind Leclerc at the chequered flag.

While he managed the situation well to massage his ailing F1-75 home, Leclerc said he had been “really scared” over team radio on the cooldown lap, and later explained how it affected his approach to the final laps.

“[It was] not only a little bit stressful, very stressful!” he laughed.

“The throttle was really inconsistent and, in the middle of the corner, it would get stuck to whatever percentage, so in Turn 3 it was very, very tricky because that’s where you don’t want any more speed in mid-corner, so yeah, it was quite tricky to manage. Not so much in the high speed, but mostly in the slow speed but, at the end, we managed to get the car to the end, which is great.

“[It was] quite a bit of lift and coast, to understand how much throttle would I have going into a corner. Not much more than that, to be honest, than just playing with the throttle on and off to try and… whenever it felt too bad, to have a bit less throttle in the corner, so yeah, it wasn’t easy, but yeah, it’s…