Clear and precise messages. Charles Leclerc launched a few, starting with a direct bet on Red Bull, for the Monegasque the great favorite on the Catalunya circuit. Zero alarms on the engine front, few doubts about the team’s growth and absolute confidence in the veracity of the values on the field that will emerge this weekend. One of the first aspects clarified by Leclerc concerns the engine problem that affected his race in Montreal. Charles confirmed that the reasons that caused the problem had been identified in Maranello.
“We have found a permanent solution. I won’t go into details, but you saw that I was very slow on the straights, and this pushed us to retire the car. Once we returned to the office we understood what had happened and found the solution. Immediately afterwards the aspect we focused on most was the lack of performance seen in Saturday’s qualifying, and even in this case I believe we didn’t manage things as we should have. Having said that, I am confident that we will return to our level here in Barcelona.”
Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, talks to Mick Schumacher, Mercedes reserve driver
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
No problems, according to Leclerc, even in the general management of the power units despite the three units used in nine races.
“No worries – underlined Charles – it’s true that there have been a lot of ‘movements’ with the engine lately, but we are absolutely evaluating everything without apprehension. We’re just managing the engines we have available and then we’ll see, I think this race will be important to evaluate everything, then we’ll see.”
Regarding the weekend’s predictions, Leclerc seemed all too confident in explaining his vision.
“I’m telling you my personal opinion – he began – which is not necessarily that of the team. I believe that here we will see a stronger Red Bull, I would say in line with the one seen at the beginning of the season, I say this because normally they have always done very well on this layout. In the last four races, from Miami to Canada, we raced on tracks with a lot of curbs, and in that case we saw a weakness in their project emerge, but here in Barcelona we will see them again at their level. Then, this weekend we will have some news on the car, and if this helps us to be closer it will be a good sign in view of the rest of the season, because normally Montmelò is quite representative. So it will be an interesting weekend and if we are fighting here it will be good news.”
Immediately afterwards Leclerc was asked if he didn’t think he was minimizing Ferrari’s ambitions with such an unbalanced prediction. “It’s not my intention to downplay it, I truly believe they will prevail on Sunday. If you ask me how large their advantage will be, I’m not sure, and it’s impossible to answer now. Then, we are much closer than where we were seven or eight months ago and this makes me optimistic for the future, we are doing a good job as a team and we have a clear vision of what we want to improve.”
A vision that Leclerc subsequently explored. “The way our car works leads to balancing difficulties in low-speed corners, it is precisely in these particular corners that our single-seater, as it is designed, does not behave as we would like. But we have ideas on how to optimize our package, let’s say a better way than the one found in China, which remains the track on which we had the most difficulties.”
“There is still a lot of work to do, and I don’t think the problem is just finding the balance between high and low speed. Even if we were to optimize this aspect we still wouldn’t be as competitive as a McLaren or a Red Bull. So there ‘It’s just some work to do.’
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