Charles Leclerc predicts the United States Grand Prix will be vital in assessing whether Ferrari has gone in the correct direction with past updates to its Formula 1 car.
Ferrari goes into the remaining six rounds still with an outside chance in the Constructors’ Championship as it sits in third position, 75 points behind leaders McLaren.
The Italian marque revitalised its prospects with upgrades at the Italian Grand Prix which appeared to eradicate the problem it encountered with earlier developments.
Leclerc triumphed with the improved SF-24 at Monza and converted pole position into second place in Baku, while Ferrari also showed competitive pace in Singapore.
But even prior to introducing those new parts, Ferrari had anticipated that the unique circuit characteristics at the previous three tracks would suit its 2024 challenger.
With the Circuit of the Americas boasting a range of cornering speeds, Leclerc suspects this event will provide a true barometer of the progress that Ferrari has made.
“For me, I still expect McLaren to be in front, Red Bull to be very similar to them,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week.
“And then us and Mercedes, depending on how good of a weekend we have, will be there, but we are not the favourite going into this weekend.
“So then to see how far we’ll be, it’s difficult to predict.
“We’ve had a few upgrades in the last few races, so I think this is definitely the track where we will put all of those upgrades at test, because until now, Singapore, Baku, Monza, those are very specific tracks which are focusing only on one characteristic of the car.
“However, here it’s a more all-rounded track where every characteristic of the car will count and there I think we’ll see where we’ve done the biggest progress, and if we’ve done enough of a step to be fighting with them, but I don’t think we quite have the answer yet.”
Ferrari hopes to avoid unexpected surprise
Ferrari’s nascent championship challenge unravelled earlier in the season when developments in Spain prompted accentuated bouncing through high-speed sections.
Leclerc, who lies third in the Drivers’ Championship, hopes that the Maranello-based squad will not experience any more unexpected surprises from its latest changes.
Asked how important this round is with a view to next season’s car development, Leclerc responded: “For sure, it’s a very important weekend.
“However, I wouldn’t say that it’s a lot more important than any other weekend where we’ve brought upgrades.
“As I said, those upgrades that we’ve brought in the past few races were difficult to judge.
“Now it’s a good track to judge them, and hopefully we have positive feedback out of them because this is what we believe is the right direction at the moment.
“So I hope we don’t learn something new that we didn’t understand before.
“But I’m pretty confident that we are going in the right direction and that this weekend we should see the results that we’re expecting from that.”
Leclerc highlights Ferrari edge at COTA
Ferrari was tipped to bring some updates to this weekend’s round, but Carlos Sainz has revealed that the SF-24 will remain unchanged from the last race in Singapore.
However, Leclerc thinks that Ferrari’s understanding of its package could give it an added edge over rivals with new parts due to the complication of the Sprint format.
“I think it is important. Let’s say it’s a lot less risky,” Leclerc said regarding Ferrari’s decision not to implement upgrades in Austin.
“It’s very risky to start with a completely new car on a weekend where you only have one free practice session, and basically you’ve got to change the car back from free practice to quali and you’re going to quali with a new car, not having done any set-up options or whatsoever.
“It puts you a lot on the back foot if there’s something that you did not expect that happens during FP1.
“But we’ve done a lot of our homework coming into this weekend. As I said, we know this car because it’s not like we are bringing anything new for this weekend.
“We know this car on specific characteristics, so that gives us enough confidence that we’ll hit the track and everything will be working properly.”
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