Charles Leclerc admits it will be “very difficult” for any team to catch Red Bull in Formula 1 before the regulations are overhauled in 2026.
After winning 10 of the remaining 11 races in 2022, Red Bull has extended its competitive advantage to saunter to victory in each of the 12 rounds to be held so far in 2023.
The Austrian outfit currently upholds a commanding 256-point lead over second-place Mercedes, with Max Verstappen’s points total alone enough for Red Bull to still lead the Constructors’ standings.
When asked if anybody can realistically challenge Red Bull in the next couple of years, Leclerc responded: “Well, that’s what we’re trying to work towards but for sure they have a really big margin and it’s going to be very difficult to catch them before the change of regulations.”
While Red Bull has been beaten to pole position by Ferrari and Mercedes in Azerbaijan and Hungary respectively, the reigning World Champions comfortably recorded the victory in both of those races.
Leclerc asserts that Red Bull’s success can’t be compared to previous dominant eras because of the contrast between its qualifying and race day performance.
Questioned on whether Red Bull is more dominant than any other side in F1 history, Leclerc argued: “I just think it’s different than in the past. In qualifying we’re much closer than what we’ve seen in the past.
“Normally when we see a team dominating it was qualifying and the race, now for some reason with Red Bull, it’s much more in the race than in qualifying.
“The gaps are much bigger in the race than in qualifying. That’s why we’re all working on our race pace because Red Bull is so far ahead. There is still a lot of work to do.
“We have some developments in the next few races that can help us do a step forward but also with this car we can have some unexpected surprise because they are so sensitive cars that a small change can have a big influence. And hopefully it will be the case for us.”
Although Leclerc accepts that Ferrari’s return to fighting for regular wins and championships will be a long-term process, the Monegasque driver acknowledges that is only possible by fixating on short-term improvements in the meantime.
The five-time F1 winner has stressed the need for Ferrari to get on top of the inconsistency issues that have plagued its competitiveness throughout this season.
“I mean, the short-term goals are not that exciting however we need to focus on the short-term goals in order to achieve the long-term goals which is to be back to winning races,” he explained.
“For now the short-term goal is to improve our consistency. The first part of the season, McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin and ourselves and everybody is really inconsistent.
“One race it’s McLaren that’s going to be on top by quite a bit, the other race it’s going to be us and Mercedes that’s going to be on top.
“And if we manage to find what we have in the car that gives us the consistency to always be on top of our game, this will give us the big upper hand compared to the other teams. That’s where we need to focus on at the moment.
“Then of course the overall performance to try and close the gap to Red Bull. That will be a bit later on.”
Ferrari ended the first half of the campaign on a more positive note, with Leclerc securing the Italian’s marque’s third podium finish of the year at the Belgian Grand Prix.
But after underperforming at the round before that in Hungary, Leclerc has withheld from offering predictions on how Ferrari’s troublesome SF-23 car will perform around the Zandvoort circuit this weekend.
“Honestly I don’t want to go too much into detail anymore because we’ve had some races where we’ve expected things that weren’t in line and that’s why I was speaking about consistency just now,” he said.
He added: “That’s where we really have to focus because even the characteristics of the layout is not really representative anymore for some reason there are so many more things and we’re starting to understand all of those things but it’s not really about track layout anymore so yeah don’t know what to expect yet.”
