Perseverance Quote by David Leslie

There is a particular kind of candor that only shows up when the stopwatch is ticking: the apology that’s also a morale boost. David Leslie’s quote lives in that narrow corridor between setback and spin. The lead word, “Unfortunately,” does the diplomatic work up front, signaling to sponsors, teammates, or fans that expectations won’t be met on schedule. But it’s a controlled concession, not a collapse.

The phrase “bits and pieces” is telling. It’s deliberately non-technical, which suggests two things at once: either the audience isn’t meant to hear the gritty specifics (because details invite blame), or the problem is so fundamental it can’t be dressed up as a single glitch. By framing the car as incomplete rather than flawed, Leslie shifts the narrative from incompetence to circumstance: we’re not bad, we’re just not fully equipped yet.

Then comes the pivot: “make as good a job as we can with what we have.” That’s the language of triage and professionalism, a subtle appeal to respect. It implies ingenuity under pressure, the romantic core of motorsport engineering: patching, adapting, extracting performance from scarcity. The final clause, “we feel we are doing well,” is the softest kind of confidence - subjective, collective, and present-tense. Not “we are fast,” but “we’re doing well with that at the moment,” a statement built to survive future results.

In context, it reads like a preemptive reframing of a weekend: if the outcome disappoints, the shortage explains it; if they overperform, the team looks heroic.