F1 | Leclerc: “McLaren wing controversial. What’s new? The answer in Austin”

The disappointment of last week’s missed victory in Baku seems to have been put behind him. Charles Leclerc knows that in Singapore he could have another opportunity to seal a third win of the season after those achieved in Monaco and Monza, but he does not want to approach the weekend with the wrong expectations.

First of all, Ferrari will have to understand how and to what extent the updates brought to Monza will work in Singapore. Up to now the new components have done their job, helping the SF-24s to win and earn podiums, always fighting for success between the Brianza track and the one in Azerbaijan.

Leclerc, however, dampens enthusiasm. To really understand how much the updates make a difference on the track, Ferrari will have to wait for the traditional tracks. The first of these will arrive in a few weeks, in Austin.

“It’s difficult to say at this point whether the updates we introduced in Monza will work here. The numbers we see are what we expected. They should be fine. But we won’t have the right answers until we see the gaps to the McLarens and Red Bulls on normal tracks.”

“We are racing on very specific tracks and on tracks where Ferrari was fighting for the win in the past even though it was not competitive for the whole season. So we will understand better how much the innovations are working only in Austin.”

Thanks to a win and a second place in the last two races, Leclerc has recovered points on Verstappen. The gap between the two, however, is still high and according to the Monegasque, the only one who will decide the outcome will be Max. Only he can lose or win it.

“I think the title depends on what Max does. If everything goes well for us between now and the next races, I think it will be very difficult for us to fight for the Drivers’ title. I’m not thinking about it, I’m taking it race by race to maximize the team’s points. The worst thing we can do at this point in the season is to have the wrong expectations.”

“As I said before, we are tackling very specific tracks. We are doing well, I hope the situation will remain very similar after Singapore, but I think McLaren and Red Bull will return to having a certain type of performance on traditional tracks. McLaren has never lost them but I think it will remain the car to beat, while Red Bull will improve. We need to have the right expectations to avoid running into difficult weekends”.

It is impossible not to mention the case of the last few days, that is the McLaren rear wing which, thanks to the research carried out by the engineers in Woking, generates a sort of small DRS effect even though the wing profile itself is not activated.

“I think the McLaren rear wing is a… controversial thing. But I think Vasseur can be more specific and go into more detail about the issue than I can.”