Ferrari did 'exactly what we needed to as a team' - Leclerc

He might not have been the driver to take Ferrari's first win of the season, but Charles Leclerc was nonetheless delighted to be part of a team 1-2 for the Scuderia in the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. "It's been a long time since we have had the genuine pace to have Red Bull - I wouldn't say under control, because we don't know what was the real pace of Max today," he said in the official FIA post-race press conference. "But I will say that from FP1, we knew that pole position and the race win was possible because we had very good tyre degradation, very good pace, and that is a very encouraging sign." While Carlos Sainz started from the front row of the grid on Sunday and took the lead when brake problems forced pole sitter Max Verstappen to retire, Leclerc had more of a challenge from P4 on the grid. He eventually got the better of Lando Norris by using an undercut pit stop strategy, coming in early for hard tyres on lap 9 while Norris stretched his first stint to lap 14 but losing track position in the process. Read also: Sainz heads Ferrari 1-2 as Verstappen retires from Australian GP Leclerc struggled with tyre management in the middle part of the race but fared better in the final run to the flag and was able to hold on to second place to the finish behind Sainz. "We came into the weekend telling ourselves we needed to maximise our points, and there is nothing we could have done better," he said. "Second with the fastest lap, there aren't any more points that we could have got. "That's exactly what we need to do as a team. Whenever we have the opportunity to actually win a race we need to take it, and this weekend we did it - Carlos did it today." "Carlos has just been better this weekend, but it’s been that in the last three years," he commented. "We arrive at one race and Carlos will be better, and then I'll push and be better at the next race, and we improve like that. "It's very exciting as a driver to have such a fast team-mate