Charles Leclerc ended Friday in Barcelona among the main protagonists of the day, confirming the progress made by Ferrari following the introduction of a new aerodynamic package brought to Catalonia, involving updates to the floor, sidepods, and front wing. The Monegasque driver was the reference point for the Scuderia in both sessions, finishing third in FP1 and fourth in FP2, in a context that saw Mercedes and McLaren fighting for the leading positions.
The Monegasque’s work in the morning focused on comparing the updated configuration of his SF-26 with the previous specification, which was run by Dino Beganovic. In the afternoon, attention shifted towards finding the best possible balance for the rest of the weekend. Especially on race pace, the indications were encouraging, but as Charles Leclerc himself underlined, there is still work to do in order to close the gap to the front runners.
Leclerc’s comments
“It was an interesting day,” was the Monegasque’s assessment. “We brought some new components to the car and made a step forward. In terms of competitiveness, it is still too early to draw conclusions and I believe our rivals are still quite a bit ahead of us.”
“We need to focus on maximising the potential of the package we have available at the moment and then we will see what we can achieve tomorrow.”
