Steps forward
Charles Leclerc’s Friday on the streets of his home in Monte Carlo had two sides: disappointing in the morning, with the fifth fastest time of the session, trailing his teammate Carlos Sainz by seven tenths of a second; clearly more positive in the afternoon, when the idol of the Monegasque crowd brought his Ferrari to second place, just 65 milliseconds behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, who also made significant improvements from FP1 to FP2.
Battle with Max Verstappen
The reigning world champion has indicated that his RB19 has slightly less “drivability” compared to the Ferrari, but on the other hand, Charles Leclerc also didn’t appear completely satisfied with his SF-23 single-seater. The steps forward made between the first and second practice sessions were evident, but to achieve a third consecutive pole position at his home track, the #16 driver still needs another step.
Mixed satisfaction
“It was a complicated day because the car is not behaving exactly as we would like,” acknowledged the vice-world champion. “We need to look closely at the data and continue working on the setup of the car to ensure we have the right feeling for tomorrow.”
Qualifying is all that matters
The curse that ties Charles Leclerc to his own track is well known: between F2 and F1, the Ferrari driver has never managed to step onto the podium here, despite consistently setting the fastest time on Saturdays for the past two seasons. However, this time too, his focus and that of the entire team will be directed towards the performance to extract in Q3, hoping that the strategies won’t knock him out of the race. “We haven’t tried anything for the race yet,” he concluded, “because here qualifying is crucial and needs to be prepared in the best possible way.”
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