Despite a new underbody, Ferrari started the Formula 1 racing weekend with mixed feelings on the Red Bull ring. In training on Friday, Charles Leclerc took fifth place with a deficit of 0.610 seconds to the best time of Lando Norris, while teammate Lewis Hamilton lost almost a second (+0.931).
Leclerc had to skip the first training session because, as planned, he cleared his place for young drivers Dino Beganovic. After Bahrain, the Swede completed his second Friday session of the season and collected important data – a fact that for Leclerc meant to start the weekend with less route.
But that was not so tragic for him: “It didn’t really affect FT2. I immediately felt comfortable on the track, but not really in the car and with the driving experience,” he says. “So there is still a lot to do until tomorrow.”
Also, the performance is “not yet where it should be,” said the Monegasse, “but hopefully we will get everything together tomorrow and take a step forward. In any case, there is still a lot of work tonight.”
Leclerc sees a lot of catching up to do, especially in qualifying. While the Longruns looked promising according to the Ferrari pilot, as in the past few weeks it is a quick round. “Our racing pace is very positive. I would say that we had similar lap times as the fastest. That is good,” he says.
What does the new underbody bring?
“But the problem is, as we have seen lately: everything is so close together that if you only start on P6 or P7, you can hardly get where you actually belong in the race. So our goal is very clear to maximize qualifying. I don’t know whether we will do it – but we will do everything we can tonight.”
For the first time, a new underbody was used on his car, which is supposed to ensure more output. After just one session, Leclerc could not yet confirm clear progress: “From the outside, you may think that you put a new part of the car and it is immediately faster – but everything is very fine differences,” he says.
“Even if you speak of five tenths – which would be huge – that is extremely little pro curve. And if you missed FP1 and has no comparison value, it is very difficult to feel it,” says Leclerc. “The numbers confirm that the part works, but it feels difficult to classify.”
Hamilton: Ferrari “clearly too slow”
Team colleague Lewis Hamilton was able to test the upgrade more extensively, but is at least not convinced in the result: “A lot of work was put into the new underbody. But as you can see, it has not necessarily changed our competitiveness,” he says after tithing.
“The car does not feel bad – we are simply too slow. We have to analyze that,” he quarrels. “There is actually nothing more to say.”
In the first training session, the seven -time world champion also became the victim of a gear damage and was able to do very few of all pilots with 20 rounds, which “was frustrating for everyone in the garage,” as he says.
Due to the problem, he was only able to walk briefly on the track after maintenance and not drive lungrands. “But I think we made it up to some extent. They quickly changed the gear and made it ready for FT2,” he says.
“Charles was six tenths of the back, I almost ideal. But we learned a lot and we will make some changes and hope that we can get a little closer. But we won’t be at the front,” he skeptically looks at the rest of the weekend.
“We continue to accelerate, try to coordinate the car better and see what we can get out. It is extremely narrow in the top field. A tenth can change everything. So we are working on finding at least this tenth overnight.”