The Monegasque from Prancing Horse and the challenge to the Star for second place in the Constructors’ Championship: “I expect a close fight, we are motivated, but the performance will depend on many small details”. Russell: “Exciting challenge, happy to be in our position”
– Milan
Last assault on second place in the F1 Constructors’ World Championship, where the Ferrari chases the Mercedes ahead by 4 points: this is the main theme of the GP of Abu Dhabi (TV coverage here), the final race of the season, which will be held over the weekend on the Yas Marina track. In the pre-event conference, two eagerly awaited protagonists of this challenge, the Ferrari driver, spoke about it Charles Leclercseventh in the drivers’ standings just ahead of George Russell of Mercedes.
the Monegasque
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Thus Charles Leclerc, fresh from a good second place in Las Vegas: “It will be a close fight, we arrive here with a positive momentum, but Mercedes is historically strong on this track – says the Monegasque from Prancing Horse -: we will need to put everything together to make some progress our best because our speed will depend on many small details. I believe we will be close to them, but everything will depend on the package we manage to have at our disposal.”
perfection is needed
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The Cavallino team principal, Frederic Vasseursays that the momentum is all Ferrari’s and Leclerc essentially agrees: “Let’s see how the GP will go, but we are all motivated to want to beat Mercedes: having good inertia is positive, but we will have to do everything perfectly to beat them. Our 2023? The best moment was the last GP, but we hope to come back stronger for next season, with a single-seater to win GPs.”
Russell hopes
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George Russellthe Stella rival is excited: “We are enthusiastic about this challenge, it will be a close battle with Ferrari who are coming off a good GP in Las Vegas: I am happy to be in our position and we will try to be as fast as possible to stay in front – says the Englishman from Mercedes -. On this day there were often surprises in terms of speed from GP to GP, but we have an open mind, perhaps they are ahead in qualifying, but we will see if they stay ahead of us at the end of the day: 2023 it was strange, we were fast only in some casesbut without the results we expected and we have to understand why it was like this and not everything went smoothly.” Towards the next season, here are Russell’s intentions: “Compared to 2022 I seemed to have increased the performance and instead we often chased : we will try to do a good job to consolidate 2nd place in the Constructors’ Championship and then aim for 2024. In the winter we have to recover on the most dominant car in history: it won’t be easy, but we hope not to encounter any setbacks.” , we have to close this season with the challenge against Ferrari.
Gazzetta dello Sport
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