Charles Leclerc says he expects Ferrari’s competitive outlook to remain the same as the opening two races at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
While Leclerc qualified within a tenth and a half of Sergio Perez’s pole-sitting Red Bull in Saudi Arabia, a grid drop for exceeding his Control Electronics allowance pushed him back 10 places.
Although his comeback was aided by a Safety Car bunching up the pack, Ferrari’s evident struggles meant the Italian outfit lagged far behind Red Bull, Aston Martin and Mercedes.
Heading into the third round in Australia, Leclerc is not expecting Ferrari’s performance landscape to change dramatically around the Albert Park Circuit.
“I think that in qualifying, we’ve been quite good since the beginning of the season,” he said. “Where we need to focus on is the race where our car is extremely peaky.
“When all the conditions are right, we seem to be able to extract the performance out of our package but whenever the conditions are changing a little bit, with a heavier car where you see a little bit more the limitations of the car, then that’s where we struggle.
“So we are trying to focus on that. I do believe that we’ll be quite close in qualifying – I hope so – but I think that the picture in the race will be quite similar.”
Ferrari’s race day troubles can particularly be attributed to suffering a repeat of the excessive tyre degradation issue that partially stifled its title challenge last year.
Leclerc has repeated that remains one of the biggest weaknesses to solve on the problematic SF-23.
“Honestly, it is just to try and have a more solid car in all the conditions, just because we seem to be quite good in terms of Qualifying whenever the peak grip is there,” he explained.
“But then, whenever we lose a little bit of grip in the race, then it starts to be very, very difficult and we seem to lose quite a lot of performance, so on that we need to work.”
Last year’s race saw Leclerc dominate proceedings to record the first grand slam of his Formula 1 career and lead the World Championship convincingly.
Leclerc, however, is not anticipating having the package underneath him to be able to repeat that devastating performance this weekend.
But the five-time F1 race winner is confident it will serve as great motivation for the famed Italian team in its bid to recover back to the front of the field.
“For this year, we are not coming into this race in the same situation as we were last year, I think,” he considered. “Clearly, our performance is not as good as last year.
“But we are working massively to try and come back at the front. Last years are good memories, as we can see on the images now. Everybody was really happy.
“But again, we are fully motivated to be back in the front, we know where we need to work on. I don’t think there will be any miracles for this weekend.
He added: “But after that we’ve got a three-week break, and we’ll try to use it in the best way possible in order to bring upgrades as quickly as possible on the car.”
