After losing a place to George Russell at the start while fighting Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, Leclerc made early progress using a one-stop strategy to move up to fourth.
But, having been predicted to be the team closest to Red Bull on race pace, both Ferraris were unable to make any further gains, as Leclerc finished off the podium – 4.5 seconds behind Sergio Perez in third and nearly 10s off McLaren’s Lando Norris in second.
Leclerc didn’t understand Ferrari’s pace drop on the hards, having switched his mediums for this compound after 21 laps, which left him unable to challenge the rostrum finishers.
“I don't think we found it [the pace] as a team, especially on the hard tyres, which is a bit strange because the strength of this car since the beginning of the year is it's very solid in all conditions with all tyres,” Leclerc said.
“Today is a bit an outlier because, as soon as we put on the hards, we were half a second off. So that is very strange.
“We will look into it and try to understand what went wrong on that run.”
Source: Autosport