Behind the scenes of a Ferrari F1 team briefing with Charles Leclerc. Charles Leclerc's comments in the Ferrari F1 briefing.

Briefings in Formula 1 are among the most top-secret moments in a race weekend. In these meetings, teams openly discuss every aspect concerning the track: from the car’s setup to the program for the following sessions, up to encoding the highly secretive “plans” of race strategies. Of course, everything starts with the drivers’ comments, who provide engineers with input on the car’s behavior, to be processed and translated into engineering terms. It is precisely this moment that was captured by CANAL+, particularly the feedback provided by Charles Leclerc during the Ferrari briefing after the free practice sessions of the F1 weekend in Bahrain.

Charles Leclerc’s comments in the Ferrari F1 briefing
We are in the introductory phase of the briefing, during which the drivers provide general comments on all aspects of the track: car, tires, qualifying simulation, and race pace, to be further detailed later.

Charles Leclerc begins by analyzing the tires, particularly the C3 compound, stating how many timed laps they could provide in a qualifying context:

“On the first lap, I stayed well below the limit. The second lap gave me the impression that the C3 could do more laps. However, on the second run, it was not at all like that.”

The Ferrari driver continues by analyzing the car’s behavior, highlighting a traction issue in combined conditions, meaning while still in the corner:

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“I locked up in turn 4, I think because I probably went a bit too wide on braking and, from that moment, especially on the rear, the combined traction worsened a lot. So from there, it was very difficult to maintain the same confidence entering and exiting the corner, especially in the low-speed ones.”

Finally, number 16 addresses the topic of race pace, focusing on tire management in some corners:

“As for the full tank runs, everything seemed in line. I did the first laps more calmly compared to this morning, which helped me get into the rhythm. I agree with Carlos that turn 12 seems too slow and 6-7 seem definitely too fast” and concludes, “but I’ll go into more detail later, thanks.”

Source: f1ingenerale