Only one week on from the Monegasque taking pole place for america Grand Prix, Leclerc feels his Italian squad is extra on the again foot in Mexico Metropolis.
He and team-mate Carlos Sainz are battling to extract sufficient tempo from the automotive over a single lap, with their job made all of the tougher by the aggressive traits of the accessible delicate tyre.
So, regardless of Leclerc ending second free practice on Friday third-quickest, simply 0.266 seconds behind pace-setting Max Verstappen, he supplied a downbeat evaluation of the place issues had been at.
“We have nonetheless received plenty of work to do, as a result of the McLaren appears to be extraordinarily sturdy,” stated Leclerc.
“Clearly, the Crimson Bull and Max [Verstappen] appear to be very, very sturdy. Mercedes is a little more tough to learn into for now, however specializing in ourselves, we all know what are the areas we have to work on and hopefully that can assist us to do a step ahead.”
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari
Requested concerning the possibilities of topping qualifying for the second weekend operating, Leclerc stated: “Oh, it will likely be an enormous shock if we do pole place, however by no means say by no means.
“It is a difficult observe. It’s extremely tough to place a lap collectively, however I really feel like this weekend we’re a bit too distant.”
Sainz, who ended FP2 in eleventh spot, defined that Ferrari was battling rear grip
“It has been a tough day for us,” he stated. “To be trustworthy, I feel we anticipated to be a bit extra aggressive however, for one cause or one other, we did not appear to nail the stability.
“Particularly over one lap we appear to battle quite a bit with the rear grip, and it’s our principal level of focus for [qualifying].
“That delicate tyre is kind of delicate, and it overheats fairly rapidly and it will get you in bother. So yeah, now we’ll focus and see if we will enhance our one-lap tempo. The sector appears to be actually, actually tight, so I feel it is going to be a tricky combat via Q1, Q2 and Q3.”