F1 | Leclerc: “Good pace. Ferrari in better position”

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari were the protagonists of the best Friday of the season, at least until now. The best time obtained in Free Practice 2 and the consistency in the time trials shown today give us hope and open up several opportunities to witness a different weekend from the first two in Bahrain and Jeddah.

Leclerc ended the day with a margin of almost 4 tenths over Max Verstappen's Red Bull, but the Monegasque – mindful of what he has experienced in recent years – knows that tomorrow he will have to deal with the Dutchman and the RB20 although today they were not able to shine as they had done in the first two seasonal outings.

“For now the sensations are good. We had a positive day from the first laps in FP1 to the end of FP2, so it's a good start, but we have to continue working hard because I'm sure that tomorrow there will be some surprises and there's no reason to be a little bit ahead of everyone else tomorrow too, so there is still room to improve in some things, our race run was quite good, which is encouraging, but let's see.”

“It's all very complicated. Melbourne is a very demanding track, with quite high curbs and the wind. And there is also only one clean line, every time you go a little off the road you lose a lot of grip, so it's a [sfida]but we are fast, so we are having fun, but we have to wait and see tomorrow if we will be fast.”

It's difficult to predict a Ferrari on pole tomorrow, but Leclerc sees the Ferrari in a better position than in the first two races of the season. The SF-24s immediately adapted well to Melbourne and could also be closer in pace than the Red Bulls.

“I would say we are in a better position than the first two races, but Red Bull haven't pushed yet, so we have to wait and see what their potential is. I think they are still ahead, but this weekend we could have our best one yet. opportunity since the start of the season”.

“The race pace is quite strong, but again it's very difficult to compare because some drivers had a lot of traffic, while we did relatively clean laps, but it felt quite good. So it's better that it went well on Friday than the opposite. So it's a good start, but we have to keep pushing and see what's possible.”