Clear and precise messages. Charles Leclerc has sent out a few, starting with a straightforward bet on Red Bull, which he sees as the big favorite on the Catalunya circuit. No alarms on the engine front, few doubts about the team’s growth, and absolute confidence in the truthfulness of the field values that will emerge this weekend. One of the first points clarified by the Monegasque concerns the engine problem that affected his race in Montreal. Charles confirmed that the reasons causing the issue have been identified at Maranello.
“We have found a definitive solution. I won’t go into details, but you saw that I was very slow on the straights, and this led us to retire the car. Once we got back to the factory, we understood what happened and found the solution. Immediately after, we focused on the lack of performance seen in Saturday’s qualifying, and in this case too, I believe we didn’t manage things as we should have. That said, I am confident that we will return to our level here in Barcelona.”
According to Charles Leclerc, there are no problems in the overall management of the power units despite the three units used in nine races.
“No worries,” the Monegasque emphasized. “It’s true that there have been many ‘movements’ with the engine lately, but we are evaluating everything without apprehension. We are just managing the engines we have available, and then we will see. I think this race will be important to evaluate everything, then we’ll see.”
Regarding the weekend forecasts, Charles Leclerc seemed overly confident in expressing his vision.
“I’ll tell you my personal opinion,” he prefaced, “which is not necessarily that of the team. I believe we will see a stronger Red Bull here, in line with what we saw at the beginning of the season. I say this because they have always done very well on this layout. In the last four races, from Miami to Canada, we raced on tracks with many curbs, and in those cases, we saw a weakness in their design, but here in Barcelona, we will see them back to their level. Then, this weekend we will have updates on the car, and if this helps us to be closer, it will be a good sign for the rest of the season because Montmeló is usually quite representative. So it will be an interesting weekend, and if we are competitive here, it will be good news.” – he pointed out.
Charles Leclerc was then asked if he is downplaying Ferrari’s ambitions with such a skewed prediction. “It’s not my intention to downplay,” he replied. “I really think they will have the upper hand on Sunday. If you ask me how big their advantage will be, I’m not sure, and it’s impossible to answer now. But we are much closer than we were seven or eight months ago, and that makes me optimistic for the future. We are doing a good job as a team and have a clear vision of what we want to improve.”
Charles Leclerc elaborated on this vision. “The way our car works leads to balancing difficulties in low-speed corners, and it’s in these specific corners that our car, as 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 we found in China, which remains the track where 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’s just work to be done.” – he concluded.
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