Charles Leclerc has appeared to already rule Ferrari out of the running for pole position ahead of tomorrow’s first qualifying session of the 2023 Formula 1 season in Bahrain.
Ferrari endured a mixed day of running as the Italian team was seemingly unable to be a match for either of the high-flying Aston Martin or Red Bull outfits.
After opting not to utilise the softer compound of rubber in opening practice, Ferrari ramped up its preparations for qualifying by bolting on the red-walled tyre in the evening session.
However, Leclerc remained 0.4s behind the leading pace set by Fernando Alonso, while Carlos Sainz failed to be classified inside the top half of the time sheets.
Speaking after practice, Leclerc has cast doubt on the potential for him to replicate his qualifying exploits a year ago that saw him clock the fastest time in Bahrain.
“I don’t think we have the performance maybe for pole, but we can be in the mix,” Leclerc stated.
“Whenever we have races that are a bit more difficult we should be here and try to take every opportunity so that’s what we’ll try and do this weekend.”
Although Leclerc claimed the most pole positions of any driver in 2022, he was only able to achieve two race wins from the nine fastest qualifying times he set.
Severe tyre degradation troubles in the latter part of the year were the primary catalyst for Ferrari’s failure to translate its searing one-lap speed into frequent victories.
While Leclerc was able to produce a promising race stint on the Soft tyre in the closing stages of FP2, Ferrari’s SF-23 car still looked equally adrift of the top two across the long runs.
Despite acknowledging that it has margin to improve for the weekend, the Monegasque driver has insisted that its overall pace in that area is where it has the most time to find overnight.
“That’s where I think we have most work to do but again it’s very difficult to know what the others are running,” he considered.
“We know what we are running, and we know there’s a bit of margin, but we need to wait and see for Sunday. But there’s still things to improve.”
After struggling with the balance of an experimental car throughout testing, Leclerc did relay the positive news that he had experienced a positive feeling inside the cockpit during practice.
Nevertheless, he was swift to reiterate that Red Bull’s apparent advantage from testing had been reaffirmed by the evidence of Friday running ahead of the grand prix.
“Let’s say that the feeling is better than testing,” the five-time F1 race winner expressed.
“On my side in testing the feeling has been very, very inconsistent in the way we ran the car because we were testing loads of things, so I didn’t have much time to get the car to my liking, which I did today, and I think that went really well.
“On the other hand, it seems that what we thought was confirmed, Red Bull seems quite a bit ahead compared to everyone, Aston seems very strong too, but let’s wait and see.
“For now we need to focus on ourselves, try to gain a little bit of performance overnight and hopefully have a great qualifying tomorrow.”
Asked if he hopes the speed of Aston Martin and Red Bull was potentially track-specific, Leclerc responded: “I hope so! But to tell you that I know that for sure, I don’t know.
“It’s still early days. I maybe think that Aston is a bit quicker than what they will be tomorrow, but let’s wait and see. I don’t know, it’s just what I think for now,” he added.
The first qualifying session of the year takes place tomorrow at the Bahrain International Circuit, with Leclerc going in search of a third pole position at the venue where he claimed his first in F1 four years ago.
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