Charles Leclerc has suggested there is more to come from the upgrades that Ferrari has brought to Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix as he secured a front-row starting position.
Leclerc produced a tremendous lap at the death to prop up third on the timesheets, which became second once George Russell, who had qualified in second, was penalised.
The Monegasque had headed the Ferrari charge across the weekend despite sitting out FP1 and lapped more than five-tenths quicker than his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Leclerc is well-renowned as a specialist in Bahrain, having taken two pole positions and one victory at the circuit to add to the one in his title-winning Formula 2 campaign.
However, Leclerc was eager to attribute his most recent impressive result at the venue to the breakthrough that he unearthed with the 2025 Ferrari car in Japan last weekend.
“It was really good, but I don’t think today’s performance relies on my record on this track,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week. “I think it’s the result of a lot of work.
“At the beginning of the season, we obviously weren’t where we wanted to be and since two or three races I’ve gone in an interesting direction setup-wise, which seems to help me to extract a bit more out of the car. That’s what I’m trying to do every weekend. For now, it seems to be better and better, which is a good sign for the future.
“I’m happy with the lap. It was very tricky to put everything together, but I think I did so. There wasn’t much more inside the car.
“I did not expect to be so close to pole position – just like him. But tomorrow is going to be a bit more of a challenge.”
Leclerc hails Ferrari upgrade
Ferrari’s underwhelming beginning to the season prompted the team to accelerate updates in a bid to cure the unexpected problems that have arisen with the SF-25.
But while he admitted the new parts have delivered an instant improvement, Leclerc suspects that other tracks will provide a better indicator of the step Ferrari’s made.
“Yeah, the team has done a really, really good job,” he acknowledged.
“We’ve all pushed quite a lot in the last few weeks because we’ve been struggling with performance.
“I know that at the factory they’ve been pushing like crazy to try and bring this floor a bit earlier on, and that definitely made the difference. Because if I look at the gap with P4, it’s not that much and I’m pretty sure that without the floor I wouldn’t be P3. So that’s already one position won.
“I’m curious to see what it will do tomorrow.
“However, it’s probably not the best track to extract the maximum out of this new upgrade, but in the next few weekends we shall see more of it.”
Leclerc rules out McLaren challenge
But Leclerc has warned that he is poised to be looking in his mirrors rather than aiming to pressurise pole-sitter Oscar Piastri amid the anticipation that McLaren will dominate.
“Honestly, McLaren seems to be extremely good with tyre management and more specifically the overheating of the tyres,” he highlighted.
“We’ve seen it in FP3 – I think everybody was struggling a lot – but Oscar put a lap in that was very impressive. I think tomorrow in the race there will be lots of that, so I don’t think we expect to challenge the McLarens, but we might be pretty close with the Mercedes, also with the Red Bulls.
“So it’s going to be an interesting race. We all have different tyres. A good start will obviously be essential, especially with high temperatures like this, to have clean air plays a big role.”
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