Despite winning Friday Practice at the Spanish Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc admits that Ferrari “has some work to do” on race performance.
The Monegasque was fastest in both Friday free practice sessions at the Circuit of Barcelona-Catalunya, however only three tenths separated the top five drivers as Mercedes improved.
However, despite their good form, tyre degradation appeared to be Leclerc and Ferrari’s Biggest weakness in the hot conditions at the end of FP2.
“Our qualifying runs don’t look bad, but we have some work to do,” the Ferrari driver conceded. “In particular on our race pace and on tyre management, the stints we did on the soft compound felt better than those on the mediums.”
“Tonight we will analyse our latest data to find where we can improve on this track. The conditions are very different to the last time we were here during winter testing.”
According to the data during Friday’s race simulation, Leclerc was several tenths behind Max Verstappen’s average speed, with Mercedes also close to matching Ferrari’s performance. And Leclerc admitted that a repetition of Miami, where Ferrari qualified first but lost to the Dutchman on Sunday, was possible.
“I don’t want to call that a fear but let’s say it is definitely the priority to work on that and to get better because at the moment we are just not strong in the race pace,” he stated.
“I mean on the short run we looked strong but the high fuel run looks very difficult for now. We will have to work very hard and hopefully, we find quite a bit of pace for tomorrow.”
Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, was fourth fastest in Practice 2 and he seemed to struggle to keep up with Leclerc.
“A bit of a tricky FP2 compared to a positive FP1, as we struggled a bit with tyres and balance after the changes we made,” he explained. “It seems like there is a lot of degradation with the heat, [that] could be crucial for the race, so we’ll also keep an eye on that
“We need to look at it and find the correct adjustments for tomorrow, but we’ve got plenty of data and I’m sure we’ll find a more comfortable set-up.”
The Spaniard, on the other hand, is energised by the support of his home audience, and Barcelona welcomed fans back for the first time since 2019.
“I’m very impressed with the number of fans in the grandstands today,” Sainz said. “It’s fantastic to see all these people supporting us, and their good vibes are a huge motivation!”
