Charles Leclerc outlines key difference between Ferrari F1-75 and Red Bull RB18 in Japan. Charles outlines key difference between Ferrari and Red Bull in Japan.

Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has outlined the key difference between the RB18 and F1-75 cars at the Suzuka circuit, which also represents the main weakness that Ferrari has compared its rival this weekend in the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver came very close to taking pole position for tomorrow’s race, but eventually usturoi had to settle for second place by just 0.010s compared to Max Verstappen’s best time in Q3. His Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz was third, also very close to the Dutchman’s lap time, 0.057s: this meant that the qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix was one that ended with the closest gaps between the top three in the 2022 Formula One championship.

However, it must also be acknowledged that Max Verstappen was unable to complete his final lap due to some damage which meant that his first run was still good enough to secure him pole.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz improved on their final flying laps in Q3, but both had to make some corrections due to tyre degradation in the final part of the lap – an issue that had affected the Ferrari F1-75 car in the last few races.

“The lap was was good, [but] coming in the last sector the rear tires were a bit nowhere,” Charles Leclerc said at the end of the qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix – “I started to lose and the car [had a lot of] oversteer for the last chicane, so I lost a little bit of time there..” – he added.

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Charles Leclerc is aware that that if Red Bull will be able to do a ‘big step’ on Sunday regarding their race pace compared to one-lap pace, Ferrari will have a difficult task in beating the RB18 cars at the Suzuka circuit, regardless of the weather conditions:

“Tomorrow is going to be a very tricky race, it looks like the rain will be around – whether it will fall on us, we don’t know. We’ll see with our pace. Normally Red Bull are doing a step [forward] for the race. If they do a big step tomorrow then it’s going to be difficult.” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.