Charles Leclerc finding it hard to forget about recent struggles but acknowledges “step in the right direction” in Australia

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari’s season has got off to a rather poor start. He retired in the first race when running P3, but had generally disappointing race pace compared to Red Bull. The misery piled in Jeddah, as despite good one-lap pace, he had to take a penalty. He made good progress through the field from the start, but an untimely safety car, combined with a pace fall-off on the hard tires meant he had to settle for a P7.

Right now, his (and the team’s) championship hopes don’t look very good. This is in complete contrast to what it was like for Ferrari in 2022. They came into Australia as title favorites or at least a good shot to challenge Red Bull till the end. And they won the race. This time, though, challenging the British team is rather unlikely. The drivers and the team don’t seem to think it’s possible. The 2022 Constructors’ champions have been pretty much insurmountable, and seem to have the dominant car.

But Leclerc is at least feeling a little bit better than the previous two races. Speaking after Friday’s practice sessions, the Monegasque said: “I feel like the feeling is a bit better than the other races, so that is positive. It is probably our most positive FP2 of the season, which doesn’t mean much, but at least it is a Friday that finishes on a positive note.” as per Formula1.com.

He added: “Now we need to work, do another step in the right direction tomorrow and hopefully we will be a bit closer to the Red Bulls tomorrow [in qualifying], and especially [during the race].” While Carlos Sainz has struggled with nailing that one lap, Leclerc, as always, has been nothing short of heroic in qualifying. But he can’t secure a good result if the pace falls off as drastically as it did in Jeddah. As such, the race runs will be very important.

Read More: Charles Leclerc dismisses the possibility of a Ferrari win at the Australian GP while reflecting on the 2022 win

Charles Leclerc: We are going a ‘little blind’ into the Australian GP race

Charles Leclerc has a reputation as somewhat of a ‘pole specialist’. He has taken 18 pole positions, and two pole trophies home – in 2019 and 2022. The Ferrari SF-23 also seems to be competent in qualifying – it’s the races that have given the team trouble since last season’s summer break. So, the Monegasque said: “In quali I think it will be close once again. In the race, unfortunately with the rain [in FP2], nobody did the high fuel runs, so on that we are going a little bit blind into the race.”

He acknowledged the team’s struggles with race pace, but thinks Friday was a ‘step in the right direction’: “Maybe in FP3 we’ll see a bit more long runs and hopefully we’ll manage to learn a bit more there. I think that with the different changes we’ve done today, maybe we [will] find a little bit of performance. We must not forget that last race, we were really, really struggling in the race and we won’t be finding this kind of lap time in the race, but this should be a step in the right direction.”

Last year, in a sense, Ferrari and Leclerc’s title challenge ended in Australia – it was never the same afterwards. A series of errors, reliability failures, and strategic mistakes were responsible for this. The Monegasque’s package has already failed him once – he can’t afford to have it do the same again. Two races in, his chances at the 2023 title already look slim, any more errors or reliability failures can prove to be the final nail in the coffin.

In case you missed it:

• “Sergio Perez is too inconsistent,” Charles Leclerc backed to be the ‘biggest title challenger’ to Max Verstappen
• ‘Carlos Sainz lacks nothing,’ Frederic Vasseur rules out unjust preferential treatment to Charles Leclerc at Ferrari

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