After a mixed season for the Ferrari Formula 1 team, Charles Leclerc says their problem is the "raw performance" of its car, not its set-up. This comes as the outfit is expected to bring its largest upgrade of the season to the United States Grand Prix.
Ferrari has often looked competitive in practice sessions, but as qualifying begins, it seemingly slips backwards in comparison to its rivals. According to the Monegasque driver, this pattern comes from the engine modes his rivals are running.
“I’m not sure we are particularly good on Fridays,” he admitted. “I mean we are, but I believe it comes more from the engine modes that others are running, and once we come to qualifying, they just have something that we don’t.”
Rather than lacking performance over qualifying and the race, Leclerc instead argues that Ferrari arrives at race weekends with an already well-balanced car, thanks to the work his colleagues have already done at its Maranello base.
“One of our strengths as a team is straight from the get-go having a car with a good balance,” he said. “I think our car is quite peaky, but I think we do a very good preparation before the weekend on the simulator.
“The correlation has been quite strong recently, which helps us to do the work on the simulator back at home, and then arrive at the track and have a strong car straight away and a car I feel comfortable with.”
Franco Colapinto, Alpine, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
But he does not think changing the car’s characteristics would unlock more speed.
“It’s not that if we design a very peaky car, then we can extract more out of it,” he said. “The raw potential of the car is not at the level of our main competitors, but I don’t think making it more peaky will be able to extract anything more.
“I think it’s just the raw performance of the car where we are a bit down at the moment.”
Ferrari has struggled with straight line power all season, with its opting for a smaller turbo to improve performance at lower speeds. This has cost the team, with it eventually losing the one advantage it did have. But with a new floor, sidepods, and bodywork on the way in Austin, the Scuderia drivers could see a swing in performance.
This has been a long time coming, with the team's last race victory coming at the British Grand Prix, where Leclerc took the win. Despite this, however, the Italian squad was able to outscore Mercedes at both the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia and the Singapore Grand Prix, the latter of which saw Leclerc finish second behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Ferrari sits second in the constructors’ championship on 444 points, 134 points behind Mercedes, while Leclerc sits fifth in the drivers’ standings on 215 points and team-mate Lewis Hamilton is third on 229.